The Art Of Forgetting full
by WaronaJolomba
Summary: about love by warona


**PART ONE.**

**PROLOGUE.**

I think the first memory I have could have been before I was born. I mean, we always have those instants that perform in our awareness; moments so equivocal and shadowy that it is so hard to extricate them between a dream you had a couple of years ago or a time you experienced before you could really consciously collect it as a memory, like when you were two or three years old. Maybe we all recall a period when we were enclosed within the frames of our mothers, sheltered in a soft orange glow, similar to the colour you get when you close your eyes on a sunlit day, and the light seeps like a sunset through your lids. Maybe we can all remember our mothers' voices thriving through our undeveloped souls like when you cover your ears and the sound of your voice rebounds loud inside your head. Maybe we can remember the huge heartbeat and surge of blood flowing through as if we were being prepared for the intensity of life. It could be there, lodged somewhere within the hippocampus of our brain; the memory of our lives before we began to live them. See, it could just be lodged in a jammed drawer of memories that won't jerk open, no matter how hard you strain; for over the years, other things you have remembered have undermined the first recollections. Perhaps.

What happens when you lose a memory? Do you lose yourself? After all, it is almost like a neurological reminder that you are alive and that you have existed. Whether you remember your first kiss or that time in 5th grade when you got food poisoning on your 9th birthday. Or when you think back at the time you went on a family cruise around the Caribbean and you didn't want to return home. Let's just say you were not conscious of that anymore. What would that mean? And I do not know exactly who I am asking. It could be God, even though I know I will not get a response from Him. Maybe he's too busy peering into a Las Vegas cabaret club from the heavens. Maybe He died. Maybe He gave up.

I guess I'm really just asking myself a hollow question; sort of like most philosophical queries that rarely go answered.

My dear Jo,

I just want to know if you will still exist when you come back.

**ONE.**

**"Now all you can do is wait. It must be hard for you, but there is a right time for everything. Like the ebb and flow of tides. No one can do anything to change them. When it is time to wait, you must wait."**

-Haruki Murakami

**Hey Jonah.**

It is Friday, the eighth of November, 2013. It's raining right now, as I type this. I'm sitting on my bedroom windowsill with a mug of coffee and the view is striking from here. It is night-time and the whole town can be seen glittering in street lights. The mountains are a striking backdrop, being silhouetted by the soft illumination of the dusk sky.

It's seven o' clock and I can smell my mother burning a vanilla and coconut incense in her bedroom, where I can also envision the flickering of a dim wax candle by her bedside table.

It's seven o' clock and I can't quite understand it, but it is in the pit of my gut; just an empty, odd feeling. Sort of like when you leave the house and you are so sure you're missing something but you're not sure what.

It's seven o' clock, and I miss you dearly.

Your scenario isn't worst-case. You will still be able to talk and walk and whatever else. The worst thing possible would just be failing to recall everything recent. Though I'm not sure how long 'recent' stretches out to exactly. And it's not the kind of memory, like what you ate for dinner the night before, or what was on TV but things like who your new friends are. Things like the route to school from home, or that you fell in love once. I suppose that really punches me in the gut more than anything.

I woke up this morning and thought long and hard about what would happen if/when you woke up. We have to start again somewhere, didn't we? I can't just skip into your life and kiss you and hope you'll tell me you missed me because in reality, you would narrow your eyes and ask me who the hell I am. I honestly think I must have gained all of your memory as you lost it. I can just sit there and remember every minute detail of my time with you. It's a sign, right? I'm holding onto it for you, for when you come back. That is why I need to write down everything that has happened so far, to this point.

And memories are interesting things, right? They are a mess – a bundle of our past being. They can be beautiful and they can be ugly, and that is all we will ever be, inside and out. Memories are flowers, wilting and flourishing in our minds, poisoning our hearts, yet vitalising our spirit. Memories prove our existence better than we can. The only problem is, we hold onto our own and nobody else's. That's probably why we still feel lonely from time to time, without knowing why. The weights of our own lives come crashing in on us, and no one can be there to feel the density of it expect us, as individuals.

Every second I spent with you was not perfect, and I am afraid to tell you that. However I need to write with honesty, not scrutiny. I need you to know that you really do love me, even if you don't think so primarily. I need to show you why, even if I'm not so assured of the answer myself.

I thought I would start off this entry by introducing myself. I will try and go into enough detail to fill up all the cracks in your broken mind; all the little spaces of darkness that occupy your brain, where information about my existence should be.

My name is Olivia Grace Silverman, however when my parents requested my preferred name to go by as a child, I stated Grace. So my name's Grace. I thought it sounded better on the tongue; plus it's short and snappy. One syllable is more than enough. I suppose the name Grace is just as simple as I am really – being called Olivia would suggest that I am slightly more of a character, but I'm not. I would hand that trait right over to you.

I live in this tiny town of Huntington Valley, somewhere in the depths of practically nowhere. There is a biosphere of mountainous ranges, emerald green fields and woodland forests surrounding this small area, and it is almost constantly being cascaded in rain from grey clouds. When you wake up, you might get hit by the sudden cold that shakes the hospital windows from outside. It will most likely be snowing or frosty everywhere. I went to the hospital a couple of years ago to collect antibiotics for a vigorous cold I got, and one of the things I noticed was the view of the ice-capped pine trees, lined up far out like tall, solid soldiers standing row-by-row in the artic atmosphere. My body felt like it was on fire with my high temperature, but just a swift look outside reminded me what Huntington really felt like. And every winter, it is always the same. I just thought if maybe you could read my words in your sleep, I could prepare you for the weather. Your hair is long enough to warm up your ears but your nose will turn pink and your fingers will freeze, despite the cigarette you will most likely have hanging between them. Wear gloves when you leave, Jo. It's cold out, trust me.

I was born in the year of 1996, in the heat of summer. You wouldn't expect it to get so hot here, especially because of how cold it usually is. It's rare that it's hot all throughout every summer, although it's possible and that happened when I arrived. My parents were newlyweds with the 'Just Married' number plate still hanging over their living room fireplace, when they walked through the front door with me hidden in a bundle of light blankets in my mother's arms. I have never moved from this house, which hangs right on the edge of town, close to the National Park. For the last seventeen years, I've seen my street shift in new neighbours and I've heard arguments in the street at midnight. I've watched tonnes of house parties happen just inside my peripheral vision as I pressed my face against my bedroom window. I've sat along the same windowsill when I wanted to watch the small glitter globe I live within, live around me.

I cannot wait to see you. I know things will be different and difficult, I know. I'm here, though. And when you're better, we can go stargazing in the National Park and get lost in space, and remind ourselves of how pointless we all are. The universe couldn't care less about if we existed or not. The stars that we look up at are just filling up dark space, as are we. Just for a lot longer. The galaxy continues to expand. It doesn't matter if anyone dies, or someone is born, or two people break up, or a celebrity wins their second Oscar. The universe doesn't care. We are all just specks of earth and periodic elements and unfathomable emotions. We are just a connection of neurological impulses and desperate heartbeats. I hope you wake up and know that.

Goodnight.

Love Grace.

**TWO.**

**"When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people."**

-John Steinbeck

We first met on an early January dusk, intertwined in the period of my early departure of a house party.

My best friend Eva rapped on my front door on a sharp January noon, where the sky was greyer than my eyes in a high definition photo. I was draped in a fluffy blue dressing gown, after having only just woken up. Eva had gone for a jog around the neighbourhood and decided to make her last stop my house. She stood on the front lawn with her chestnut hair tied up and skin-tight lycra shorts gripping her legs. She beamed when I opened the door, stretching her left leg as she leaned to the side with her hand leaning on her knee. I can recall her greeting me before traipsing in without another word.

'There's a party tonight at Dylan Hale's house,' was the first thing she said to me.

'And…?'

'You, my friend,' she pointed a manicured nail in my direction as she sat cross-legged on my living room rug, 'are coming with me. No ifs, no buts. Period.' Sweat beads were dotted on her forehead. I can remember staring into her hazel eyes and trying to find the joke hidden behind the retina lens or something.

'Eva, there's a History test coming up next week. I can't.' I sighed. It was probably the weakest excuse ever. It would have crumbled in a light breeze if it was tangible. Eva rolled her eyes so hard and fell back in exasperation I thought she was trying to exorcize herself.

'There's no point in trying to evade this, Grace. You're coming with me. Don't give me the 'short notice' card or the 'I don't know what to wear' excuse. We'll find something in your closet and you will wear it and you will come with me.'

'Do I have to?'

'It's not even debatable anymore.'

I sighed so hard, I think my lungs had shrunk inside my chest. My mother had appeared from upstairs, standing at the doorway of the living room. She looked at me, then Eva, then me again. I could now hear the kettle boiling in the kitchen, which was always a sign that she had woken up.

I live with my mother Lily, who you alleged to find absolutely hilarious. I don't blame you; she does make me laugh a lot too. She has the tendency of cracking dreadful jokes. Ever since my dad left many years back, she has always been attempting to make me smile. At first I thought she maybe wanted to cheer me up, nonetheless I feel as if she was doing it for herself too.

She seldom switches on the TV and spends most of her time reading books and drinking copious amounts of red wine. She looks absolutely nothing like me, with her extremely long flood of straw-coloured hair, vivid jade eyes and style of psychedelic sixties hippie clothing. I love my mother very much, and once you told me that you do too. Not in a weird way, but in the 'favourite aunt' kind of way.

'Where is she going?' My mother asked.

'To a party tonight. Dylan Hale's. He lives around the corner. You can walk around to collect her if she can't walk back steadily herself.' Eva laughed.

'Very funny. Grace, are you going out? I don't mind to be honest, as long as you _can _walk home steadily at the end. Just take a trip out, it's only for the night.'

Great. Now my mother was trying to convince me. But if I believe in fate, I believe that the idea had been breathed into my mother and Eva that I had to go to this party. I would have never met you that night if I had stood my ground.

Mother's kettle had finished boiling and Eva ran upstairs to wash the drying sweat off her face. I followed, collapsing onto the foot of my bed. I was expected to go out to a party. An actual party.

I knew I would feel extremely awkward and out of place, having made no attempt to communicate with other human beings and totally defeating the purpose of even going to a party. I simply succumbed to the peer pressure of Eva's echoing taunts, about how I 'never ever leave the house'. I felt pretty guilty about letting Eva go to all these parties alone, even though I knew she was never actually truly _alone. _She has this ability to be able to strike interesting conversations with anyone possessing a heartbeat, something that I lack with a real strength. I never really imagined myself being as bubbly, outspoken, and charismatic as she is. I love her dearly; she is like the personality I wish I had and that I'm glad to be friends with.

It's hard to try and put yourself out there as a person; when you've spent so long living within yourself, listening to your own music, watching your own TV shows, and dreaming your own dreams, it can be difficult to try and let yourself go and connect with the outside world. I'm not a recluse as such, but I have always had the tendency to stay from what is alien from me. If I've made friends or conversation, it has either been out of luck or not from my own prompting. My nights have always consisted of perching on my windowsill and watching Huntington Valley live below me. In the Summer I've been out to many outings to Huntington Edge, the cliff face located east of the National Park which is only about a mile's walk from my front door. I've hung around with numerous individuals of my time but I can only class Eva as a real friend. I let her into my life without hesitation, possibly because I knew I would not really ever let anyone else in. I didn't want to be completely alone, so I opened my gates to let in someone who seemed happy enough to spend their time with me. My friendship lives on the appreciation that somebody would actually bother to take any notice of me. And I'm not trying to be narcissistic or self-pitying. I never thought I could really make a difference to somebody's life in any way, shape or form. I thought I was just another being, connecting and interlocking with other people in the universe. That's what I had thought for a long time.

'You can wear this.' Eva threw out a halter neck lace dress that had a dark red velvet layer underneath. The hem just hung a few centimetres above my knees. I could feel myself shuddering from the cold just by looking at it. Eva must have seen my disapproval, and began delving through my wardrobe as if it were hers. 'OK, wear this with this.' She took out a cropped rolled-back sleeve tee and some washed-out denim shorts. I shrugged. 'I'll take that as a yes,' was her reply. 'Can I wear the first dress then? I'll hand it back tomorrow once I wash alcohol stains off it.' She grinned, 'I'm kidding.'

The fun didn't last long at the party. It was hot and sweaty inside and I hated the smell of whatever substances were being burned into the air. I knew nobody except Eva and some other people that I occasionally saw at school. I felt like an immigrant, thrust across the border into another way of living. I didn't like it at all.

Eva was lost in the depth of this party, having long stopped keeping me company and instead mingling with the seniors. I spent the majority of my time enduring the pain of how leisurely the wall clock seemed to be ticking. I wanted to be at home as soon as possible. This was the kind of January that enticed you into premature twilights with coffee and blankets due to the acrimonious breeze that always blew. It was the first real house party I'd actually ever attended; one that didn't consist of party poppers, board games, and petty family disputes. This was the first party I'd been to where strong liquor and outlandish pills were being consumed by everybody and people were either really plastered or really loud. Or both. It was far too confining inside and far too cold to hang out on the lawn where a few people were enjoying chains of roll-your-owns and deep discussions. I was not in the disposition to talk to anyone but Eva, and seeming as she was already pretty occupied with other things, I made the choice to leave. I made sure I hadn't left anything inside (phone, purse, dignity etc.) and began making my way across the frost tinged grass in my year-old vans.

This was when you first stole my attention.

You sat on the lawn with your legs crossed, trying to light a Marlboro Light and your eyes were focused on the lighter in deep attentiveness. The street light illuminated you and exposed the defined contours of your face. You sat with a glowing roll-up between your lips, and dark brown hair that tumbled in tousled waves to your shoulders. And I'm not sure it's possible to fall in love at first sight; there are other attributes you have to be educated of, such as personality and attitude, but somehow I could see it all in you already. You were so beautiful, Jo. You still are.

I probably spent a couple of minutes meandering around the front of the house as I tried to subdue the speed of my heart at this moment of time. I don't know why I stayed, to be fairly honest. I was far too afraid to say anything however; I just thought that maybe if I acted as if I was waiting for a friend, it could give me a chance to breathe in your presence a little longer.

I've never been with anyone before. Not in any sort of way. I may have had a few friends of the opposite gender in the past, but that's where it ends. I have never been educated in the skill of communication with the other half of the human species – it's just not something that has ever really occurred in my tedious life. I've always lived timidly, only opening up to those who I am extremely familiar with. It's not something that I've ever thought too much of. Despite guys driving their way in and out of Eva's life constantly, I've never really been influenced by it. I'm the type of person who is used to being alone, and it was becoming quite scary how much I'd recently started to prefer it. I guess I didn't think about the fact that my romantic interests in the future may just become Lonely Evening ice-creams and Lonely Woman cats. I was OK with being by myself. I was fine with being self-governing. I thought that I could live with it. However, you made me think otherwise.

I was wondering whether it would be best or worst to start off a conversation and I was not sure whether you were as aware of my presence as I was of yours. I hung around like the sun in the evening sky, slowly preparing to depart. I was scared that I was just wasting my time, waiting for Eva, waiting for a miracle to occur. It was only just when my feet began to walk along that you first talked to me. Your voice rang soft and alarmingly comforting through the night, bringing my eyes instantly towards you without control.

You had brought you gaze to me and I watched as you smiled, still sat serenely on the ground.

'Why are you leaving so early?' you asked.

'I'm just a little tired.' I tried explaining through hushed words.

'You're lying. You're just trying to disguise how bad you think this party is right?' You smiled before taking another drag. 'You want the rest?' You offered me a roll-up and I had timidly declined, stating that I don't smoke. It wasn't long before you stood up, dropping your cigarette into the lawn and stepping on it lightly to bring down the ashes.

'I'm so hungry right now,' you sighed. 'Do you know where the nearest fast food restaurant is?'

'Well, there's a diner like a mile around the corner,' I replied.

'Thanks. What's your name?'

'Grace.'

'You know, that was one of my favourite Buckley songs in the history of forever.' You grinned.

'I think I prefer _Dream Brother_._' _I heard myself respond.

'That's my second favourite.'

'What about _Lover You Should Have Come Over?_'

'Too... mellow.'

'Come on. That song is divine.'

'Yeah. Right,' you nodded sardonically. 'Ok, seeming as you're about to leave and I'm about to leave, do you fancy accompanying me to my intended destination?'

'I don't know. I've really got to get home.' My heart instigated an unsteady beating pattern.

You rolled your eyes. 'I'm starving and I need something to eat and I don't know this place very well so I could like, turn the wrong corner and end up in Mexico if I don't get a little help getting there.'

I laughed. 'That seems highly likely.'

'It is. Come with me please. You seem nice and I'm not just going to leave you. I don't want to get caught up in the pathway of an urban Latin gang.' You smirked.

My heart liquefied. 'Fine, OK. Only if you agree that _Lover You Should Have Come Over _is a great song. And you promise to drop me home before midnight.'

'Why? Does your inner wolf come out when the moon emerges?'

I laughed. 'No. But my mother is very overprotective, and she'll most likely give me a few too many words in the morning.'

'Ok, I'll drop you off in time. But _Lover You Should Have Come Over_ is still not a good song and I'm not succumbing to your bribery. Let's go.'

Your car smelled like tobacco and spearmint chewing gum and leather. It also smelled like the scent of your skin. You know, like everybody has their own scent, right? Old men always hold their noses against their dead wives' dresses and close their eyes so that they trick themselves into believing that they aren't widowers and never were. I could just smell that this car was yours and nobody else's.

Pink Floyd played gently in your stereo as the illuminations of the dimming town blurred past like catapulting stars in the vast skies. I felt both a mixture of comfortable and uncomfortable in the shotgun seat of your car. I didn't say anything during the ride and neither did you, but you didn't seem to mind the silence and that's what ruled out any awkwardness. You just nodded your head lightly and whistled at each hook and kept your gaze forward.

We ordered a big plate of fries between us, and two cups of coffee. I checked my phone to see if Eva had texted and she hadn't yet. I was wondering if she was OK. I was wondering if she was wondering if _I_ was OK.

'This is amazing,' you uttered between a mouthful of chips. I didn't look at you (because I was too nervous to make direct eye contact), but instead outside the window next to us. There was a faulty street light that kept flickering. A couple of guys flew by on bikes in the fading light of the evening. I noticed a cat balancing on a fence in the car-park. I couldn't tell if it was stray or not.

'What brought you to that party?' you asked me, taking a sip of your coffee. I took a forkful of chips, close to biting into them before being halted by your question. 'My friend made me go.' I said.

'Eva Jones?' you narrowed your eyes in curiosity, as if you were trying to solve a riddle. Of course, I only saw this from the corner of my eye. I still didn't dare look in your direction.

'Yeah, Eva. Do you know her?'

'Not really. I know her name and what she looks like. She's quite a character, isn't she? Like, she literally tried making out with me at Cherry Lawson's bash last week.'

'She did?'

'Yeah. I turned her down, though. I didn't think someone that disorientated would remember being rejected the next day.'

'I suppose.' I said. 'But yeah, she's really sociable.'

'She's your best friend, right? You seem to have very contrasting personalities.'

'Yeah, I know.' The coffee in front of me was starting to run out of creamy foam. I stirred it until it was just light brown liquid.

'How did you become her friend?'

'I don't know. We just met in fourth grade. She was really nice,' I didn't know what else to say, so I drank my coffee.

'I should probably stop asking all of these questions,' you smiled. 'And I'm so sorry – I forgot to tell you my name. Jesus Christ, I'm an idiot.' You shook your head. The cat leapt off the fence and disappeared down the other side. 'Jonah. Jo for short.'

The name sounded nice when it trundled off your tongue, like a wave onto the coastline.

'I moved here in December, from like a million miles away. It's just a completely surreal environment. Seeing all of these different places and people and having to get used to them within a matter of months.'

'Where did you move from?' I asked.

'Alvarado City. It's not even in this state.'

'I know that place! The lake is magnificent there, isn't it?'

'Yeah, it's pretty cool. Especially in the summer – it's just this huge blue lake in the middle of the desert. It's like nature was bored when it was made.'

'Well, the Huntington National Park is as extraordinary as it gets here.' I responded. I felt my right thigh vibrate with a text that was most likely from Eva.

'I need to hike there one day,' you said, finishing off your coffee.

'I take walks there all the time. There's this amazing cliff face that you can just sit on and watch everything. It's so lovely.'

You sat silently for a while, absorbing my words as I absorbed your presence. I decided to check Eva's text.

-Where did you go? She asked. I knew she wasn't drunk enough to text proper grammar.

-Home. I texted back.

-Why? The party is amazing! Did u ever see that new hot brunette guy?!

-No, I didn't.

-Your loss, he's gorgeous. He's not here either anymore, lol. You just missed him!

-Shame. I ended the conversation by telling her I was going to bed early. I don't even know why I lied to be honest. I just felt like it.

'You go to Oakville, right?' you asked, sliding into the subject of school.

'Yeah.'

'I'm starting there next week. I thought I'd settle in over Christmas break first.'

'It's a nice school.'

'So I've heard.'

Again, I had ran out of words to say, so I played around with the last few fries left in our plate, waiting for you to say something else. Instead, you stood up to leave. A couple of coins and a note were retrieved from your pocket and you left them on the table before walking away. I quickly followed. I felt like that was all I did – follow people. Like a sheep in a herd.

I remember when I was seven and I went to a fairground with my father. It was around the time that he was starting to depart from us; he rarely ever took me out anywhere and after an afternoon of protesting, I finally got my way and was whisked to the mobile fair downtown. It only came for one weekend of the year. I couldn't go the year before because I had sprained my ankle after falling off my bike, and I was convinced I needed crutches to get around.

Anyway, he promised me that I could go on any ride I wanted and play any game I wanted and eat anything I desired. We ended the night on the merry-go-rounds and dodgem karts before stopping to eat at this exact diner on the way. We never said a word to each other the entire time we ate, and everything felt extremely hollow. It was cold by this point and I just wanted to get home. I also felt sick after consuming far too much cotton candy.

All I can say is, if I had wished for something more that night, it is the feeling I got this night. Here I was, just eating fast food with a complete stranger and trying to bounce interesting words between us, and I felt as if you had given me the empty promise my dad had told me I had. This night, I felt warm, and for once, I didn't want to go home.

It was the kind of night that hung in my chest for weeks subsequently, always being brought back into my attention when my mind was at ease.

I loved your mystery. I'm not going to make out that I found you to be some kind of enigmatic, reclusive and highly seductive gentleman with no known past; you seemed happy enough to talk freely about yourself. You were quite selective in doing so, I've come to know. I liked that I didn't know who you were; you were a blank slate in my mind, a love still yet to taint. You were a canvas ready to leave a mark on and I was pure enough for you to change me.

For days on end, I deeply regretted never trying to get your number or something cliché like that. At first, I felt as if it was your job to do that. I was waking up from dreams where you didn't really exist or we never really met and it would scare me to think that it could have literally been like that. I kept thinking, _what if I didn't go to Dylan Hale's Party? What if I didn't decide to leave early? What if I wasn't Eva's friend? _Would I ever have had the absolute pleasure and luck in meeting you, even for just that one fleeting night?

But for now, you seemed to be everything that I wanted and everything I never expected I would want. You were relaxed, carefree, content, interesting, and striking. You were an unopened book where I had studied the intricate designs of the cover but not yet delved into each chapter.

They were soon to be opened though. And boy, would it be a story.

Love Grace.

**THREE.**

**'I got lost in him, and it was the kind of lost that's exactly like being found.'**

-Claire LaZebnik, _Epic Fail_

Oakville High is an ancient realm, having had graduated my grandparents when they were fairly a little older than me. You can just tell by looking around at parts of the building; some structures look dilapidated and abandoned (especially the oldest parts) while other rooms seem to be in the middle of a modern makeover. The school looks incomplete, as if the builders quit halfway through construction. I bet some of the chewing-gum fossilised underneath the wooden tables has lived longer than me.

I had the choice between two high schools once I graduated from elementary. It was either this one or the school further downtown, where the students get to leave into the shopping outlets for lunch break. I would say that's a huge advantage to that one; however it would be a much longer bus ride there and back for me. I don't think my mother would have appreciated me shredding her cash via daily public transport and numerous trips to Starbucks.

This school is fine. I settled well when I started, and the students aren't as dramatic as the downtown high school is known to be. Football games are played with the backdrop of trees sliding down mountains, and all seems calm and euphoric when the field lights beam upon the team, the bleachers, the cheerleaders and mascots. Nothing much happens at Oakville; everyone is familiar with everyone. In fact, it's almost so ghostly boring that people revert to spreading the smallest of rumours and constructing mountains out of molehills. The second you were discovered, you were almost a celebrity for a while.

Eva asked me why I left early the other night. We were taking shade under an oak tree in the school field over lunch. I ate strawberries one by one from the container on my lap. I had seen you that morning, and you grabbed me in the hallway to get my attention.

'Hi.'

I stood silent for a moment before smiling meekly. 'Hi.'

'How are you doing?' You asked as if we had talked a million times in advance.

'I'm fine.' I was lost for words again. In my head I was frenziedly searching for something to say, running my hands through utter darkness and the light bulb just hadn't switched on yet. People brushed past and some stopped to look at us, mainly you. You were a brand new face to most of the school. I could tell by Eva's text after the party that you must have been pretty interesting to others, just as you were to me.

'I left because I was bored. You completely forgot about me.'

'I'm sorry Grace! Honest to God, let it go.'

'Stop asking me why I left!'

She huffed before stealing a strawberry from my lap. 'Have you seen the new guy around? He was at the party. I texted you about him, remember?'

'Yeah. I think I've seen him.' I didn't look at her.

'His name is Jonah.'

'I've heard.'

'Who told you?'

'I don't know… does it matter?'

'I call dibs.'

'No you don't.' I shook my head.

'I just called it! It's too late.' She beamed resting her head on the soft grass. It was slightly damp from the rain that fell two days ago.

'I met him.' I blurted out.

Eva froze and then slowly looked at me. This made me laugh.

'When?'

'After the party. I thought I wouldn't tell you about it. I just didn't feel the need to.'

'You are such a liar, Grace. You need to stop reading books. They teach you to be a good liar.'

'I'm not lying. I swear.'

I didn't want to say anything more because I knew that she would in no way believe anything I said. About talking to you. About riding shotgun in your car. About eating French fries with you. She would laugh in my face.

'Ah! There he is!' she turned around and saw you walking along the pathway with Dylan Hale. You were throwing an unopened packet of Marlboro Lights up into the air and catching them as you strode along. Your shoulder-length hair was tied back, and your profile appearance was beautiful. The midday sunlight bounced on the atoms that gathered to create your matter. You were real. You were here.

'Dylan!' Eva called out with her loud voice booming, and I knew that you would turn around too and I was beginning to panic.

I know that you won't remember this. You will not recall walking up to two girls under an oak tree; one girl waving her hand vigorously at you, and one girl cowering behind. You won't remember looking over to the cowering girl and smiling, and calling out her name with a voice of silk. You won't remember Eva holler 'You know her?'

You won't know me anymore.

A lost memory is almost like a wasted experience.

Huntington Valley is habitually known for its famous National Park, east to the town. Surrounded by a colony of tall pine trees and other forms of woodland, it blossoms into a beauty in the hottest days of the year and is blanketed in thick white snow on the coldest. It has always been a place of sanctity and peace for me; somewhere I can go to get away from myself and everything that is troubling me. I occasionally spend hours on end lying on the cliff edge, basking in the glorious view of the Valley beneath and trying to forget about the reality that I have to face.

I first discovered Huntington Edge after a walk out with my father. I was around seven and we had basically gotten lost in the forest, losing track after taking a stray path. It was the core of summer and my garments fixed to my skin as I draped my arms over my father's moist neck. I hung on as he sauntered along the coffee-coloured stones and shrubberies, pushing himself forward over land which seemed to get steeper with each pace. We continued walking until we touched a covering of land with the absence of trees, and as we carried going we noticed that the covering of land stopped. Just like that. He put me down, and I hoisted myself on the edge of the cliff, in awe as the scenery took my seven-year-old breath away. I had asked my father if we had reached Heaven because I honestly believed that we were on top of the world.

'No,' he responded. 'There is still a lot of sky left. Look up.' And I did. I looked up to a cloudless blue eternity, dotted with free birds, and inhabited by the sun at its peak. That day had never felt so beautiful. I've taken trips down to the Edge ever since.

I'd like to say I miss my father. After all, he was there for the majority of my childhood. I don't really understand why I was as apathetic as to why he suddenly just packed his bags and left a year later. I did love him. I know that he was an adventurous man and my mother objected to it. He wanted to travel the world; go to places like Hong Kong, France, London, and my mother was having none of it. She wanted to settle down and stay in the Valley, own a nice small coffee shop in the centre that they could both run and spend the rest of their lives in the same place. My mother has never been one for change; maybe that's why she still can't kick her wine-before-bed habit. Anyway, things just didn't work out. He walked out of the front door to live the life he had always sought, and I understood.

Father would write letters to Mother every month for about a year after his absence. Mother would cry at each and every one. And one night, when she was sobbing silently in her dim candle-light room, I came in and asked her why she was so sad about Dad's letters. She told me,

'Grace, I can't let him go. I can't let your dad go. I love him. I love him. I never wanted him to leave. I can't ever forget him, Grace. Will you ever forget about him? Please, Grace, don't forget about your father. He will come back one day, he promised me. I will never forget his promise. He'll come back, Grace.'

After we first met, I took more trips to the Edge. Sometimes twice a day; I would watch the cliff both when the sun rose against the Valley, towering light over every rock crevice and town building and also

at night, just as it began to set. I would walk over rocky topography, sliding through tall trees and stepping over moist shrubs and greenery until I could see the sky in front of me. Until I felt as if I were a part of the sky. It just reminded me that there is a big world out there, and there is no time to think about small, petty concerns. My mind would become philosophical and somewhat spiritual while I was up there. It was as if there was some sort of air that hung just above the opening of this crag that held thoughts that I seldom felt down on earth.

When you joined me and Eva for lunch, she spent the whole time wringing out information from the both of us. She's not exactly the school gossip – you can trust her with information. However, she will still feel the need to know everything that doesn't involve her. She's always wanted to feel a part of current social conversations, and that's half of the reason why she has more friends than me. She is always the first to find out about a hook-up or a break-up but always the last to speak about it.

I stayed particularly quiet on this bitterly breezy cold January lunch day, instead focusing on each student that made their way up and down the concrete pathway behind you and Dylan. A tenth-grader was wearing this hideous orange shirt that reminded me of gloves my grandmother knitted for me when I was six. The wool was extremely itchy and I always hated going out in the snow because I knew I could probably stop cars in the street with blaring carroty hands against the cold pure white.

'Where did you move from?' Eva asked you.

'Alvarado,' you responded, playing with the grass in front of you, wet with dew.

'Wow. That's far. Fly or drive?'

'Drive,' you said. You didn't look at Eva much, and this made me feel better. Most girls always get that panging jealousy that creeps through their throat from their chest when someone they like seems interested in someone else.

Eva changed the subject. 'You should have been at the party until the end. Cherry Lawson threw up in Dylan's mom's favourite vase.'

Dylan shook his head. Eva laughed loud enough for most people to know she was around within a one-hundred metre radius. You smiled, but I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't had looked up at you the exact second I did. My eyes went straight from the darkness and soil below my legs to the bright blinding sky and the chest-squeezing grin on your face. From dark to light.

I've never understood the importance of remembering and forgetting until recently. I have learnt so much this past year, and you taught me the majority. You taught me that you are never really in control of your own mind. Yes, you can walk, talk, and eat, but you cannot regulate your emotions. You cannot control who you fall in love with, you cannot control your memories. You are born and then you pass away, and the time amongst that is yours to hold on to. Your mind will make sure of that. The past cannot be the past without the memories that you keep, the future can only be determined by what you remember. Now I understand why my mother was so adamant for me not to forget my father. I understand why she sometimes would forget to cook dinner, but never overlook the one she loved so much.

Love Grace.

**FOUR.**

**'I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me.'**

-George Orwell, _1984_

You've been out cold for thirteen days now. I hope you wake up soon, so I can finally go to sleep. I didn't think I could suffer from insomnia. It's not even the fact that I can't sleep. I'm definitely tired, that's for sure. My eyes are struggling to stay open as I write this, and the skin on my spine hurts, because I'm trying to hold the weight of my body on my back, as I lean against my bedroom wall. I'm just waiting for a phone call or for my mother to rush into my room at three in the morning with good news. It could happen.

Eva came back from the hospital the other day. I haven't felt the need to talk about anything negative so far because it hurts so much. I would rather reminisce and pretend that we are still in January, and everything is still new.

Eva was with you thirteen days ago. You all ended up in a pretty bad state. Since then, I have wondered why on earth fate didn't choose me to tag along with you. I should have been there. I shouldn't have been asleep on the sofa with the soft glare of the TV shining on me, as I slept. I shouldn't have been calm and relaxed, as if you were fine. I should have been with you.

Around seventeen days following our first encounter, we met again.

Late January decided to bring a colony of rain onto Huntington Valley for a couple of days and everything was soaked in cold, cold winter. Some days, the rain would plummet aggressively to the ground as if attempting to break through and it could be heard tapping loudly on weak tile roofs and rattling windows along with the squall. Other days it would just come in small sprinkles, almost impossible to see but so blatantly present, drenching life in an unpleasant humidity.

Nonetheless it didn't stop people throwing house parties as per usual. When Eva stated to me that you were hosting a one, a part of my stomach twisted with a peculiar kind of exhilaration. The happiness I initially felt about seeing you again was rapidly substituted with a tsunami wave of unease. I instantly began to think about things like what I would say to you if I got the chance, what I could wear to impress you, how you would act towards me if you saw me. I thought; _this is your chance, Grace Silverman. _I needed to grab it with all my effort, and I couldn't let this slip between my fingers. But something inside my mind paralysed me. For some reason, Jonah, I was slightly scared of meeting you again.

I went anyhow, and after having spent a very long time preparing myself, Eva and I drove into town to the neighbourhood where your house is situated. We arrived circa 6pm when the sun was turning the firmament orange and bouncing ruby sunlight on reflective town buildings. The highlands bowled through the vista like a faultless backdrop. You were sitting on the front porch of your house with a beer, talking to a couple of guys and greeting any new guests. Your hair was up in a tousled indie-guitar-player bun, with smaller dark curls locked behind your ears. Marlboro Lights were tucked away in your denim chest pocket. Every time you smiled, my soul slightly wavered.

I tucked a stray hair behind my ear and made sure I didn't look more senseless than I perhaps already did, and Eva and I approached you. You stood up and smiled and proceeded to hug us both. You smelled really, really lovely and your clothes were so soft. I just thought I'd tell you that.

You were the life of the party; your colourful charm radiated through the air and not one person didn't laugh at every joke you made. You dished out drinks and cigarettes like you owned a bar, and your cordiality to everyone made me fall for you. Every time your eyes fell in concentration to somebody else's words or your fingers would subliminally tuck your hair back, whenever you laughed or said something funny enough for people to erupt in laughter, I would fall for you more.

I sat in the kitchen at one point twisting myself around on a rotatable bar stool and already feeling tired enough to want to go. It was like a recurrence of last time; I guess that parties would just never be of my interest. The XX was blaring softly in the front room and yet again, I had lost Eva in the crowd of teenage socialites.

'You're not a party person at all, are you?'

I looked up and watched as you dispensed shot of vodka.

'No, I guess not.' I replied, slightly dumbfounded at your abrupt arrival.

'Then why do you come? Why do you come to parties?'

'I need to get out more,' was my meek excuse.

'Why don't you go out to the movies or something? Maybe a trip to the library?' You beamed before downing the miniature beaker of transparent fluid. 'I'm kidding. But seriously. Don't yield to the pressure of your peers. Just because your friend likes to get wrecked at every house gathering doesn't mean you have to.'

'Very wise words.' I took a handful of small cheese biscuits out of the savouries basket on the kitchen worktop. 'Sometimes I think I need a therapist though. I feel like I suffer from social anxiety. I freak out at the smallest things and it's worse when I'm around people.'

'People like me?' you grinned. I stayed silent. 'We all suffer from anxiety. Some more than others. But we're all scared of something. We all sometimes let the worst-case scenario eat away at us. It's only natural, it's a survival skill. Count yourself lucky.'

'Thanks for that.' I tried smiling. My throat was pretty dry and I felt quite clammy and I felt like I couldn't say anything else to you without you having something better to say back, so I shut up for a while.

'So, Grace. Tell me more about yourself. That evening at the diner was far too vague for my liking. From what I know so far, you're an Oakville High junior, you like barbeque sauce on your fries and you're extremely introverted. Is that true?'

'True.'

'You live with your mother on East Valley Avenue, you don't smoke, and you're very, very cute. Is that right?'

I hesitated for a moment, praying that the flush in my skin wouldn't be too perceptible. 'Yes, true. I don't know about the last one though.'

'OK, state three facts about me. Go.' At this point you began to light up a Marlboro.

'Uhm… you like to smoke Marlboro Lights, you prefer ketchup on your chips, and you like The XX.'

'Ah, the last one is well noticed. Another three.'

'You… are also a junior at Oakville, you're well-known by people despite only moving here a couple of months ago, and you seem pretty sweet.' My voice descended in volume as I got the third point and my eyes stayed focused on anything but you. I wasn't really an extreme expert at this whole flirting concept.

'This game was nice. We should play it again sometime.' You watched me for a while, taking a long drag of the tobacco like it was an oxygen mask.

At one point I made my way to the bathroom after asking where it was. You made a strict rule that no one should be upstairs unless the only door they enter is the bathroom door. I didn't want to break the rules. I guess it's just sort of reverse phycology; you know you shouldn't, so you want to.

I loved the style of your house. You moved into one of the newly built buildings in town, where everything held a modern, minimalistic contemporary flare. The way the rooms were set out seemed more like that of a hotel in the depths of an advanced metropolis. The walls were white, being decorated by dark framed well-taken photographs. You told me your parents are fanatics of photography and film, as are you. They decided to spend the night out when you brought over a couple dozen adolescent strangers into their house, which is why I didn't see them that night.

As I turned the corner into the bathroom I couldn't help but notice a particular photo, hung on the wall at the end of the hallway. It was a professional photo, taken with perfect editing and lighting. I instantly came to a conclusion that your parents took it.

In the photo, you stood ahead of the backdrop of a piercing blue sky and an orange desert. Two other girls stood with you holding huge grins and sporting sunglasses to defuse the harsh sunlight. I knew that they were sisters, and I knew that they were most likely yours. What I didn't know is why they were not with you in Huntington.

To my left was a bedroom, lights switched off. The door was open ajar. I took a fleeting look at the crack of the darkness within as a rush of curiosity zipped through my mind. For a second, I imagined what it would be like in your room. As if by some anomalous occurrence, I would end up there. Would it be messy? Clean? Artistic? Plain? Nonetheless, I took my pee and went back downstairs.

Soon after, we were now standing outside the front in the obscure dusk and every constellation shone, filling up the midnight sky. Eva stood close by as we were getting ready to leave, smiling to me over your shoulder. It was a smile of triumph and pride on my behalf. The dome of stars covered everything in a beautiful way, the kind that makes you happy to be alive at this moment in time. Things seemed to be coming together for me for once. I felt warm and happy and serene at heart.

The photo in the hallway seemed to stay with me, even after I had left your house.

Love Grace.

**FIVE.**

**'There's something instinctive about the moment you choose to 'take' a photograph. It's not the result of thought or reflection. The strength of the composition is always born of the instant of the decision. It reminds me of archery. There is the tension of the bow and the free flight of the arrow.'**

-Edouard Boubat

My mother came home with a copy of Emma Donoghue's _Room _at work today. It is a 'getaway present' she calls it. Something to take my mind off everything.

The first day I returned to school the next Monday, I was greeted by arms enveloping me from all directions. Everybody in our close circle of acquaintances came to hug me, and other students looked on as I was being mobbed with an abundant amount of affection from my friends. I can remember bursting out crying, as you would to a friend the instant they ask you the dreaded 'What's wrong?'

I hadn't cried like that since that particular night.

I'm onto the fifth chapter of _Room _already, and I can tell you, I love where it is going. You should take a read once you get better. Oh, and I need to remind you of the other books I recommended to you beforehand. I know you'll love them. You once did.

January was coming to a close when we took a walk through the Huntington National Park forest.

'This is a Canon Powershot Digital,' you told me, clutching onto your camera almost affectionately as we trekked up through the shrubbery.

'I'll pretend I understood that.'

'It's not one of my best cameras,' you continued. 'It's high-def, but I think I like the simple ones like the Polaroid instant films or even the disposables.'

'Why do you like taking photos so much?'

'A photo is a memory. Your brain rearranges every memory you've ever had, so it changes every time you think of it. Nothing's as accurate as a photo though.'

I watched you walk ahead of me with your hair resting on the back of a denim button-up shirt. You wore black jeans and red Doc Martens. Sometimes I would listen to the crackle of each leaf the soles of your shoes pressed against on the soil.

'I have so many cameras at home. Probably half were passed down from my parents. Some don't even work; they're just out on show.'

'Sell them.'

'They're my babies, no way.' You laughed. 'Every single one. I need them. Sort of like you need books.'

I grinned, 'Maybe.'

'What's the last book you read on your literary rota?'

'I've just finished reading _Black Rabbit Summer _by Kevin Brooks.' I responded.

'Strange title.'

'It all makes sense though.'

'Explain the plot to me.' You took photos of the trees as you talked, occasionally stopping to catch a tree at a certain angle, where sunlight stroked the bark.

'A group of teenagers go to a funfair, and two of them go missing. One is the daughter of a rich and famous family, so she's basically a celebrity. The other is the best friend of the narrator, who is a strange character. He had a black pet rabbit that he thought could talk to him. He was ridiculed by a lot of people because of his eccentric character, so most people speculated he had kidnapped the rich girl.'

'Did he?'

'No. The girl was eventually found dead after she was accidentally killed by a couple of the friends that went to the fair. The guy was never found again, though. I think the whole story is just trying to prove how people are treated depending on their social status. As soon as the girl went missing, the whole world freaked out. It was breaking news. Nobody cared about the other guy until the protagonist did his best to protest that his friend was missing, and find out where he went.'

'I still don't get how it relates to black rabbits.' You said. At this point, you decided to turn around and snap a photo of me.

'Jonah!'

'This photo is actually nice,' you stopped and looked back at the picture.

'Let me see it,' I ran up to you, attempting to grab the camera from the grasp of your hands.

'No.'

'Please!'

'Wait. Wait.' You put your hand out, signalling me to stop moving. 'Stay there. Don't move. I'm just checking the lighting on this photo. Honest.'

I was too late in covering my face as you took another shot of me. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm collecting a memory.' You said.

When I think back to that line now, it both breaks and heals my heart at the same time.

'Tell me something about Alvarado City.'

'It sucks.'

'Just as much as Huntington?'

'In all honesty, no.'

'That is true.'

A couple of minutes later, we were sitting cross-legged on the surface of the Edge.

'It's much bigger. The towns surrounding it are much closer. It's hotter. The list goes on.'

'I'd love to visit there one day.' I said.

'You should.' A flock of birds zipped across the horizon in a V-shaped form. My sight of the birds became blurrier until they were just small dots in a sky; an arrangement of particles with light energy bouncing around them, getting smaller with each flap of their hollow wings.

I suddenly thought back to the photo I saw at your house. 'Are you a single child?'

'Me? Oh… No. Why?'

'I was just wondering if you had any siblings. It was a random thought.'

'You saw that photo in the hallway upstairs, didn't you?'

I paused. 'Yeah.'

'Those are my sisters. Brooke's turning twenty-one in August. She stayed in Alvarado to finish her Law degree.'

'What about the other one?'

'…Amy? She's the same age as me.'

'So I'm guessing she stayed with Brooke.'

'Something like that. She stayed in Alvarado, anyway.'

I didn't really understand what that was supposed to mean, so I kept quiet and let the afternoon sun immerse into my skin cells. I could almost feel each cell sizzle with each ultraviolet ray that shone through.

'Why did you move?' I asked quietly a while later.

'Huntington Valley had a higher life expectancy according to the internet.' You smiled.

'Apparently so.' I hoisted myself up against the tree I leaned on. You looked at me with eyes shielded by Ray Ban shades.

'My parents rounded up enough money to move houses and we felt that it was time. Yes, this place is a little far away but it makes it all the better when we come back on trips home, like in the summer. School wasn't much of a big deal to us because I'd just pick up where I'd left off. My parents' jobs aren't set locations, so it didn't matter where they lived. The end.'

'I see.'

'So you just live with your Mom, huh?' You asked.

'Yeah. Dad did a runner a while back.'

'Really? Why?'

'There's not much to it. They just didn't get along.' I responded, playing with the grass.

'That's fair enough. You should have tried marriage counselling or something.'

'If anything, it would have made things ten times worse. Maybe it's just me that's noticed that sessions don't tend to end well, especially on TV. Plus, they just both came to a mutual realisation that their relationship wasn't working, so they split. My mother was distraught for a while, but she got over it.'

You were a very interesting person to talk to – everything you said and how you said it captivated me to the core. You seemed wiser than your own time; ingenious, yet self-destructive. You could smoke for the whole of Huntington Valley if you wanted, and you seemed to swig on Beck's more than H2O.

The sunlight shone through a gap in the leaves above, temporarily blinding me. I brought my hands to my face to shade myself just before you took off your shades and looked right at me. 'Hold on – what colour are your eyes? The sun literally just lit them up.' You leaned in closer, closer enough for me to feel a potential kiss. Your eyes were narrowed in concentration and your right hand ended up cupping my chin. You smiled. 'Grey. Almost silver. Wow, they're beautiful.'

I was speechless for a second, wondering what to say back. _Should I say thanks? Your eyes aren't bad too? _A simple, 'Thank you.' Was all I could muscle_. He's just trying to win you over, remember that. _The voice in my head scolded my reaction.

I have never gotten used to compliments. I guess it's mainly because I haven't received enough to get used to them. I've always wondered what it's like to be a celebrity; basking in accolades every minute of every day, as part of your living. Would you still appreciate them after a while, or would they wash over you like futile waves?

'Jonah, don't you dare light that fourth.' I protested a while afterwards.

'What? You have no control over me.' You smirked.

'I'm being serious. There are so many more painless alternatives than killing yourself via lung disease.'

'Is one of them jumping off a bridge? Because I'd be happy to.'

'That's a little bit extreme.'

'I know. Sometimes I _would_. But who has the time to be suicidal when they're blessed with a beautiful silver-eyed girl in their presence?'

I looked down at the grass, trying to hide a smile. I kept discreet this time and let you spark up. I didn't think there was any argument in trying to change your tenacious mind. And I gathered that there wasn't any point in changing any of your thoughts, since I knew that some of them showed admiration for me.

This was the first time we properly talked. It was the first time I engaged in real conversations with you and not just like how we talked at your party. I have to admit that at times, I didn't listen. As cliché as I sound, I did end up getting lost in your eyes or the movement of your lips; the way you would run your fingers through your hair or laugh occasionally.

We talked for a bit more before you walked me home, late afternoon. Spring was blossoming and the winter winds were blowing away, being replaced with a warm hope of summer and bright, colourful vegetation.

Goodnight,

Love Grace.

**SIX.**

**"You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things." **

-Jamie Tworkowski

Eva suffered a comminuted fracture in her femoral shaft. This means she broke her thighbone in more than one place, which is pretty bad. It was her left, to be precise. She had metal nails and screws put into her leg to guide it back into the right position. I checked her Facebook, where she posted photos of her leaving the hospital fairly happily a couple of days later. She was being wheeled out into the car park by her mother, with a huge smile on her face and my chest tightened when I saw this. How could she seem to content with her life? She must have gotten the news. She had to have gotten it.

You're still sleeping. Please, wake up. If somehow, the words I type can be virtually submitted into electrical signals to your brain, I would feel better. I don't want to visit you in the hospital for various reasons. I want to talk to you and hear you respond. I want you to get better first. I have it all planned in my head; you will wake up within the next few weeks and I will have a bunch of memorabilia. There will be flowers and Polaroid snaps and letters. Everything will be like it once was.

I watched you try to concentrate in History class once, on an early February morning. I could feel the interest slipping out of your conscience like oil through fingers. The teacher's voice drawled slowly, seeming to grab onto the horns of time and slow it considerably. You sat diagonally in front of me more to my right, so all I could catch was an angle between your back and the side of your face. Your first month at Oakville had come and gone, and you were the dust that had settled over every curious surface. You were finished revealing yourself to people.

I gathered that you were not a fervent academic. Just the way your eyes flickered in every bearing apart from towards the anterior of the classroom. Your fingers played with the pen in a fashion that would render your desperation for a crafty cigarette.

My mother quit when I was thirteen. I can evidently memorise her mood swings, ranging from untouchably cantankerous to profoundly melancholic. She believed she would be a better mother if she repelled the compulsions to partake in things that didn't benefit us as a family. She even began only buying organic foods and redecorating the entire house. It's like at some point, she just woke up and a switch clunked inside her brain; the wires re-wired, and she changed. I wondered what would happen if you had ever quit. If you just stopped the next day, and didn't feel the twitching temptation between your fingers every time they were empty without tobacco.

When the teacher announced that she would be leaving the class for five minutes to print out some documents in the resources room, of course the whole class erupted in a bout of lively conversations. It's always like that; the second any higher authority exits the presence of a bunch of bored teenagers, it's like summer break has come around for a brief stint.

Cherry Lawson called me over to chat, so I proceeded to make my way to her desk. I thought I noticed your gaze towards me from the corner of my sight, so I played it cooler.

'He's checking you out' Cherry whispered. I focused on her glossily coloured pink hair, which was styled in a spunky 60's up-do with a fringe that just hung over her well-done eyebrows. She really did live up to her name.

'Who?' I played stupid.

'Jo Christopher.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Hardly. Why did you call me over?'

'There's a meet-up in Huntington National Park this weekend. It's gonna be like a big picnic. I know it's a little frosty but I think it will be nice for us all to chill out on the green fields for a while. Some guys may bring instruments so we can have a little jam session over there. Are you interested?'

I thought about it. And the reason I was really intrigued was because I knew this kind of stuff happened all the time, but this was the first time I had ever been invited to any of it. Ever since the party in January, people were beginning to recognize me. I thank you for that; I would most likely still be burrowed in bed sheets, drinking Chai tea in a solitary state if you didn't lift up my social status a little higher. I guess people tagged onto the idea that we talked, and so people finally noticed me more.

'Sure. I'll come.'

'Bring a blanket. A couple of beers won't hurt either.' She smiled. 'Oh, and I allow you to bring a plus one. Ask your boyfriend over there if he won't mind.'

'He's not my-'

'It's OK, Grace. I'm kidding. Though, the tension is unreal.' She laughed.

Eva and I met up with you and Dylan and a couple of other friends at lunch time, like we had before. This time we were situated within the warmth and the thriving busyness of the school canteen.

'Cherry's throwing a field party,' Dylan piped up. I really do miss his presence. It's been a while since I've seen him, and it was when it was the last time I saw you. It almost seems like millenniums ago, but I know that if you were to come back today, it would be as if you had never left.

Dylan was definitely your closest friend. There was a certain charm about him that meant nobody could help but warm up to his character. He seemed to be the typical blonde-haired blue-eyed surfer catalogue model and most people expected him to possess a certain level of cockiness to latch onto his appearance. You liked how reserved he was and how he didn't make a big deal of much. He never seemed to worry about anything.

'She told me in History,' I said.

'That's what you were talking about? I thought I was the topic of your discussion,' you smirked.

'You're not the centre of the universe.' I retorted.

'Easy, tiger.'

'Cut it out guys. You can save the arguments for when you get married.' Eva spoke, causing everyone to laugh. I saw you tilt your head to the ceiling with a soft smile lingering on your lips.

'Bring blankets; it will be a little nippy.' Dylan said. He was always like the responsible dad type; the designated driver, the overbearing friend. If anybody cared about us being safe, it was definitely him.

'Why can't we do this in the spring or the summer, when I can actually tolerate being outside?' Eva complained.

'It will be nice, trust me. We'll light a fire.'

'Fires do nothing. It feels like your face is burning but your back is still freezing.'

'If you don't want to go, don't,' you said. 'But the more people there are, I guess we can just huddle closer together. Body warmth is good enough.'

'I bet Grace is hoping you're next to each other in the huddle,' Eva snorted. I sighed, because this was getting out of control. I tried to hide it all. I always kept my cool. I tried my best not to seem too interested in you, especially around other people. My interest had to be kept subtle.

I suppose it must have been the kind of love that shone over your head like a halo, no matter what you said or did.

Now it is one thirty in the morning. Today is another one of those days when my eyes only begin to close as the sun rises. I may need sleeping pills subscribed if it gets any worse, but overall I think it will all subside when you come back.

There's a full moon outside, so I decided to leave the curtain open and let the midnight luminosity stream through. Every mountain looks like they've been sprinkled in rays of galactic light.

I thought I'd just write about the field meet-up.

Just as predicted, it began to grow inconsiderably cold quite soon. We arrived around four in the afternoon, congregating at the entrance of the National Park before making our way through the route of the tall forest, towards the open meadow. The bitter breeze caressed our skin, sinking us into below zero temperatures.

Cherry lead us to the centre of a field, clutching onto a bag of drinks and snacks. Other attendees included a Frank Richards, guy in my Chemistry class, Jeremy Shaw and Amanda Green (who I tended to bump into from time to time more lately) as well as Dylan, Eva, you and me. You and I stayed at the back of the trail, making small conversation with each other as I gazed at the forest surrounding us.

I don't really know how long we talked for, but the sun had long set once we decided to leave. The fire we burnt had reduced to glimmering cinders, like orange stars in the soil. You lent me your khaki borg-collared bomber jacket, bravely exposing yourself to the late winter in just a Hollister tee. The others wrapped themselves in blankets as they trudged through the frost-tinged grass, back through the woods. I feel like I have to mention that this was the first time that I felt extremely content with life. The year prior, I would have never expected this for myself. There was some invisible, unidentifiable thing that I felt I had achieved and I knew there was no name for it. It could be that I had achieved pure happiness. I think I finally began to realise that my father took something from me when he left, and I was empty. It only took you to fill the voids, just by being around.

If only I could have helped you in the same way.

Goodnight,

Love Grace.

**SEVEN.**

**"I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for." **

-Jonathan Safran Foer, _Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close_

Sometimes I dream of walking into the hospital and running up the white corridors. Even in my dreams, my senses are filled with the thick smell of disinfectant and clouded hope. The beeps of machines blare in a robotic pattern, reminding me that I am in a limbo between life and death. Every time, I wander in on your sleeping state. Your hair has been cut into this short dishevelled mess, and a fleshy stitch runs from above your left eyebrow to your ear. Of course, I don't actually know if this actually true, as I have chosen not to meet you yet. I like to believe that the next time we see each other, you will be alive and well, and you will love me like I love you.

Eva told me she dropped by before she was discharged and left a couple of get-well-soon flowers on the windowsill. She told me it was weird seeing you inanimate and dull, because we all know that you are normally always full of energy. I still end up waking up in the middle of the night expecting everything to be OK. Sometimes my dreams lead me to believing that reality is more reassuring, however that is never the case.

The first time you visited my house, we spent the majority of the time in the front room which was filled with the scent of vanilla incense that my mother enjoyed burning every afternoon, in the midst of her meditation and alone time. Our house is of a kaleidoscopic art and panache, being designed from all mainly my mother's intent. As you may be able to tell, she has always been the more dominant counterpart in my parents' relationship.

She was in the 'hippie' clique in her youth, with the pretentious 'tree-hugging and world peace' attitude. She did drop most of her teenage habits; however she has sustained the world peace outlook on life and her beliefs are stronger than any person I've ever known. Before I was born, she used to spend her weekends participating in rallies and protests against nuclear weaponry and general wars. The majority of the books she reads are of that topic, also.

Mother had confessed to me once that she had married my father out of the pressure to do something more beneficial to her own life. She spent so much time bending over backwards for the humanity of others that her needs of love and affection were sometimes overlooked. Her parents thought she would end up alone and couldn't bear the thought of not having grandchildren later in life. So basically, I was the product of a woman who felt subjected to breed because her mother and father wanted a little kid to play with once they started their pensions. It's such a lovely thought, isn't it?

Father on the other hand, was extremely adamant to get married and have kids. It was his number one goal at one point, before changing it to world adventures and hiking in the Alps.

See, Mother wanted to save the world, and Father basically just wanted to travel it.

'Your mom is so cool.' You uttered whilst studying one of the humanities books perched on the coffee table. I watched as you sat in concentration, gliding your fingers across each laminated page.

'She's not, really. She's actually kind of annoying. I mean, imagine being woken up on a weekend morning to the sound of Tame Impala blasting through front room speakers, under the sound of a hoover in the bedroom opposite you, and my mother's painfully whiny voice singing along.'

'Tame Impala are an insane band. I can't believe you don't like them.'

'It's hard to like any sound when you're deprived of sleep.' I joked.

'Tell me more about your parents and why they split up.' You suddenly requested.

'I told you last time.'

'You didn't tell me _exactly _why.'

'I shouldn't need to!'

'Tell me anyway.'

'Ugh. It's pretty simple, I guess. They didn't get along and they needed their own space, you know? They weren't in love like they were in senior year. It just died out.'

'Do you honestly believe that love can die out?' You asked, closing the book and focusing your gaze on me.

'It's hard to say. I mean, you can be declaring your undying love for someone one day, then the next you could be screaming blue murder at them. I think real love should last until you die. Otherwise a deception of affection is accumulated, and hope is lost in the end. The more times you fall in love, the less real it becomes to you. You can't be in love a million times.'

'Interesting. You talk like your mother, all smart and stuff.'

In the evening my mother cooked up a Lamb Tagine which was literally mouth-watering. We sat around the miniature dining table digging in as you had an in-depth conversation about the current Korean conflict with my mother. Of course I kept silent the entire time, not wanting much to do with such a boring topic. Inside, I had never felt so warm seeing two people I loved talk to one another so freely. This 'meet the parents' thing was going pretty well.

I met your parents for the first time in early March.

The weather was not particularly kind on that day – I can remember the sky collapsing in fierce rain, painting everything dark and disconsolate. I had tried my best to impress, wearing a black high neck long-sleeved crop top, which stopped just under where my ribs ended. I sported stonewashed high-waisted skinny jeans and black leather Coltrane boots. My dull blonde hair was tied into a high bun and my make-up was bolder than the storm clouds above. You laughed when you first saw me, which instantly made me halt in my movement.

'No, there's nothing wrong,' you smiled. 'I just didn't expect you to _care _about what you looked like.'

'Every girl cares to an extent,' I replied while throwing on my white parka jacket. I made sure to conceal my head in the hood and protect myself from the torrential disaster outside. Your hair was already damp as you stood in my hallway, as you couldn't be bothered to cover up.

'My parents aren't judgemental, Grace.'

'I'm sure they're not. I just don't want to turn up on sweatpants and sneakers.'

'It's my house, not a gym,' you laughed.

I rode shotgun in your car, which blasted out humid heat parallel to the cold outside.

'I can't believe it's been three months and you haven't met my parents,' you said. 'You've been in my house but you haven't even met the homeowners. Weird.'

'It's not that weird, I don't think. I know a couple who got married and the guy hadn't even met her father yet. They had been together for almost two years.'

'Were they long-distance?'

'Maybe… it was on a TV show once.'

'We live in the same town, there's no excuse.'

I stayed silent for a while before hearing myself ask you, 'Jo… would you say we were dating?'

'Dating. What is that, exactly?' You grinned.

'Uhm… I don't know. Isn't it a sort of, limbo?'

'I don't know either,' you dismissed me. 'I think you're a lovely person though. Nicer than most of the people that I've met here. You're really pretty, even though that doesn't have to mean anything.' Your eyes stayed put on the road ahead. 'Don't sweat it, Grace. Don't think too hard about love or anything like that because I think it's just a mixture of chemicals. We should just chill out and chat and swap vinyl records and just have a laugh with one another and I guess the smallest of things will mean the most in the end. Forget the narrow terminology for different stages of a relationship. We like each other. We like each other as friends. We'd like each other if we got married. Let's keep it simple.'

'I guess.' I replied in a humble tone, before you decided to turn the radio up, blasting a Buckley record as loudly as possible. I could feel each rhythm flow through the seats and rattle my brain and it was enough to make me forget about anything that ever bothered me.

I was greeted with the familiar sight of your house, standing tall behind a nourished green lawn. I could tell that your parents took good care of your property. At the moment, the grass had been saturated with the declining rainfall. The sky was dark grey, but I could see a warmth and illumination coming from inside your house which was welcoming.

Your mother opened the door, ushering us in to shelter us from the weather. The first thing I noticed was her long dusky chocolate hair, tied up and laid elegantly over her shoulder. She wore casual fitting jeans and a jumper which instantly made me feel so overdressed. I didn't really know what I was expecting her to wear; an evening gown?

'Hello, honey.' She reached out for a hug while you continued on into the kitchen. She smelled like Mint, Jasmine and Lavender crushed and dissolved into honey-soaked tea. She was such a beauty and she still is now. She troops on, waiting by your bedside for you to wake up. I'm not sure if you feel her touch but I bet she prays that her warmth could stimulate your consciousness.

'How are you doing, Grace?' she asked.

'I'm fine, thank you.'

'That's lovely to know. John, Grace is here!'

'Is she?' Your father's voice echoed from upstairs. I could recall seeing an office-like room on route to the bathroom at your party and I was quick to guess that he was probably participating in business related affairs in there. 'I'm coming down.'

Your parents are both professional filmmakers and occupy a part in the media industry, working on advertisements and movie trailers and the lot. Your father does most of the away-from-home work, attending conferences and meetings, and coming back with film edits, commercial ideas, and a decent pay check. They met in that field of work after being assigned to a media project together in university. They spent a lot of time moving from city to city in various countries before flying all the way over here to settle in the metropolis of Alvarado, around three-hundred miles west of Huntington. They were soon ready to settle down and live like a real family.

You were named Jonah Eli Christopher, because Jonah was a close derivation of John, your father's name. Your grandmother's (mother's mother) name was Elizabeth. When she passed away circa the time you were born, her name was cut and thrown after yours as tribute. Your sister Amy got the Beth part as her middle name. I learnt this when we sat in your living room with your parents and they felt the need to spill out specks of information about you through small talk.

'Yeah, Jo and Amy were just two weeks old when my mother passed away. We hadn't done their certificates at the time, so we just thought we'd throw in something to honour her.'

'Jo was almost called Johnny, that's how bad his father wanted him to have his name. We settled for Jonah because it was simple enough. It suited him.'

'Would you like a drink?'

'Amy is short for Amethyst.'

'Orange or apple?'

'Jade was one of our other initial names, but in the end Amy fit.'

I saw a lot more family portraits all around your house this time, taking in the collection of your similar shades of hair and Alvarado sun-dipped skin tone, and how boldly your dark eyes blazed in every snap. If you weren't a good example of a perfect poster family, I don't know what was.

It puzzled me how you never seemed to mention Amy, like where she lived in Alvarado or how she was doing. You didn't even talk much about Brooke, which was also extremely confusing. Your sisters would smile at me from your living room walls, but they seemed almost as empty as their presence in the room.

'Where are Amy and Brooke? Did they stay in Alvarado?' I heard myself ask; casually taking a sip of clear glass of juice I was offered. The second I said it, I felt the air turn stiff, kind of like when I was seven and I said a bad word I was thinking of in my head out loud, and my mother looked at me like I was rotting in front of her. It was weird, because your parents seemed to talk freely enough about them, but as soon as I asked it was like they came to a sudden realisation of something.

Your mother looked at you as if to ask, _she doesn't know?_ And your father looked at your mother. Your eyes flickered with a signal I couldn't quite understand and I stayed wading in the awkward unanswered silence while you talked through gazes.

'Brooke is studying at Alvarado Central University,' your father responded, adjusting his dark-rimmed glasses. He sat beside your mother on the sofa opposite in a professionally poised position. However his words seemed forced out.

'Don't say anything about Amy.' You suddenly cut through with a sharp yet pleading voice. 'Grace, let's go out and get some fresh air.'

You lead me out to the front lawn and lit up a Marlboro and kept quiet. I didn't push on.

The day ended with your lips meeting mine in your car, as the stars flickered above and my mother's bedroom light switched on upstairs, before I stepped out and left for my front door.

**'Remember, the universe only became the universe when it shattered to dust**

**And that shattering is the only that you can always trust enough**

**To tell you the truth is so quiet.**

**You may never have heard it **

**Without a stethoscope pressed to your chest.'**

-Andrea Gibson, _An Insider's Guide on How to Be Sick_

We hung out at the Edge one night after a date at _The Beacon, _a four-star restaurant in town. It went pretty well, despite spilling a mild cocktail over my dress and almost choking to death from laughing so much about it.

We sat beside each other after trekking through the woods under the setting sun. We overlooked the vale, sprinkled in an incandescence that the town radiated. Minutes went by as we perched in stillness on the cliff edge, basking in a serenity that you could only find on top of the world. As a kid, I had asked if this placed was Heaven and I was told that Heaven is in fact the place that folds over Earth, hanging glimmering stars in the atmosphere of dusk. I always wanted to believe that there was a place beyond anywhere I knew; somewhere in another dimension where life was only ever beautiful. Every time I took sat on the cliff looking out to the sky, I felt as if I had an element of that place, that maybe I was loitering around the wormhole to the parallel universe of paradise, and that is the feeling I always felt as my feet dangled over the rock.

'Do you believe in Heaven?' I asked you in a whisper, gently destroying the air of silence that lingered around us.

'I want to.' You replied. 'It just brings me hope, you know? I don't just want to believe that people's bodies just blend in with the dirt or burn to ashes, breaking away into nothing. I want to believe that there is an additional lifetime for us to live; to become the people we were going to be or could have been. We live this one life and we make so many mistakes. We should be given the chance to start over.'

'What if we make mistakes in the second life?'

'So what? It's Heaven. You're not going to make mistakes in Heaven.'

'Do you believe in Hell?'

You turned to me shaking your head. 'Why would I want to believe such a stupid place? I'll think about everything my grandma did or my best friend did and all the mistakes they made and fear for their destined afterlife. I would live in fear of myself, and in fear of this invisible entity. That's not a way to live, Grace. Believing in Hell would cause you to walk on eggshells for the rest of your life. Every human as done something worth going to Hell for. If Hell _was _real, there would be nobody in Heaven.'

'Ok, let's turn this a little more philosophical. What about the murderers and the thieves and the crooks who show no remorse for their wrongdoing – where do they go?'

'Now those guys,' you began to spark up before speaking again,' 'Those guys would just rot. Instead of going to any place of fire and torture, their lives would end right when they should. They wouldn't go anywhere. Their souls would disperse into nothing and their bodies would just become soil.'

I sat up. 'You believe in a Heaven, so why don't you believe in a God?'

'God obviously can't keep the people I love alive for long enough, that's why.' You replied quietly.

'Ok,' I uttered. 'This is the last question and I'm so sorry if it gets to you in any way. I may be jumping to conclusions with this, and do feel free to correct me.' I looked straight at you and nowhere else. 'Is Amy… still here? Is she still alive?'

You smiled softly, but your curved lips were brushed with pure sorrow. It shone through you.

'No, Grace. She isn't.' you said so quietly that your hushed voice rolled away with the wind. 'It's hard to say it – to let the words rush out of my mouth. It's hard to say it without choking.'

'It's OK, Jo. You don't have to say anything else. You don't.'

We didn't talk much later that night. I probably fell asleep there, as I could remember waking up in the backseat of your car, enveloped in the material of your jacket. I sat up and watched you sit silently in the front seat, with a certain kind of pain in your eyes.

I thought back to the time when I was eight and I had a classmate, Harry, who died from a heart problem. I can remember how the teacher told us solemnly and some people cried, including Penelope Rothberg who had experienced a six-day relationship with him three weeks preceding. They broke up because her netball practises were much more of a priority and his company was 'interfering' with it. No wonder the poor sod cried, she had turned down someone who she could have waited two more netball practises to stay with. The whole classroom was poured with an air of neck-tightening sadness and it was as if we had lost the ability to string common words together for the rest of the hour. I looked over at Harry's empty chair and felt my stomach turn.

This is how I felt on that night.

Love Grace.

**EIGHT.**

**'I wasn't prepared for death. Nobody is. You lose someone you love more than you love yourself, and you get a crash course in mortality. You lie awake night after night, wondering if you really believe in heaven and hell and finding all kinds of reasons to cling to faith, because you can't bear to believe they aren't out there somewhere, a few whispered words of a prayer away.'**

-Karen Marie Moning, _Shadow Fever_

I spent almost all day with Eva yesterday, which is why I didn't have time to make an entry. I also didn't bring my laptop to her house, and there was no way I was writing any of this down by pen. I would have continued the entry when I got home, but my mother confiscated my laptop once she realised I used it even in the silence of the night.

Eva spent a long time in my arms last night, crying herself dry. It was similar to how my mother used to cry, except without any sign of hope.

I don't want to talk too much about death, because it's the main reason why Eva's life has been turned up-side-down, and it's really the reason you're in the state you're in.

Eva has changed so much already. I don't think she's eaten much, but I hope so. Her facial features are much more austere, and her expressions always seem to hang slack. Whatever she may have done to me in the past, there is no way that I can't let it all go and be there for her. She is my closest friend.

'Are you OK?' I asked her.

'Never been better,' she uttered. She lay on the sofa with her elevated leg enveloped in a rock-hard cast. She hadn't said much the whole time I was there, and I supposed it was best for us to breathe in the silence, rather than poison it with pointless chat. The bottom line is, everything has changed and will never be the same. For me, for you, for Eva; for any of us.

Her mother steered clear of our presence, sensing that it was best we stayed alone for the meantime. 'It will all look up, Eva.'

'Easy for you to say. Jo's still alive.'

'It's not guaranteed that he will be fine, though.'

'Don't try and sugar-coat it all, Grace. I know he's getting better, I'm not stupid. I've seen all the messages on his Facebook wall. They all blatantly show his improving health. Go take a look on Dylan's wall. Have you seen it recently? Tell me what it says.'

'Eva…'

'Don't feed me useless hope. Don't. As a best friend, I am begging you not to try and conceal everything.'

'OK.'

That was the time that I decided to accommodate the small space on the sofa beside Eva's slack body. I held onto her so tight; just to show her that I had possessed something, more than just concern. Somewhere in my heart, I shared her pain. We all share it – that throbbing, choking pain that leaves you numb from time to time.

Two days after our date, I decided to take a trip down to Eva's house. I rode my bike, weaving my way through the neighbourhood streets until I found myself at the familiar sight of her house. I wasn't too surprised when I found Dylan there. She had latched onto him as I to you. Eva was smoking cigarettes in the backyard while Dylan offered to hose her mother's camellias.

'We're taking turns,' Eva said as I stared with questioning eyes. 'It's my break.'

'OK then,' I sat in the vacant deck chair beside her. There was a thick smell of cherry tobacco in the air; Eva's favourite flavour.

'Where's Jo?' she asked.

'Not sure. At home, I guess.' I replied. The sky was painted a certain light blue, wiped of any clouds. I stared hard at it until I could see the small translucent squiggles drifting on my retina.

'He didn't answer his phone yesterday,' Dylan called. His voice was slightly washed away by the rush of cold water from the hose. I felt the need to drench myself in it, to scrub off the weight on my chest.

'Grace… have you had an argument with him?' she tried reading the message in my eyes like a binary code. It felt like when I was nine and I finished all the hidden sweets behind my mother's back, and she searched for the answer through my gaze because my lips didn't dare move.

'No, not at all.' At least I was telling the truth.

'What is it then? You seem weird.'

'It's nothing… you know, we don't have to be by each other's side every second of every day. He has a life. I almost do.' I achieved a smile. Cherry blew out her last cherry-scented drag before crushing the roll-up on her freshly cut grass. Dylan switched the hose off.

'I know you're hiding something.' She uttered.

'Probably because it doesn't involve you, like everything else seems to.' I countered. Dylan left, entering the kitchen to avoid breathing in the sour air around us. Eva sat up, 'Well I'm sorry for being your closest friend and wanting to be there for you if something seemed wrong. I'm so damn sorry.' She hissed.

My heart got caught in my throat for a fleeting moment. 'No, Eva. I didn't mean to snap. I would tell you if I could, you know that. It's not about me. It's about Jo.'

Eva gasped. 'Oh no… he didn't come out, did he?'

I managed a chuckle. It was nice how her mood could turn by my words. 'No, no. nowhere near that. Family issues.'

'Divorce.'

'No-'

'Dog ran away?'

'Let's keep the guessing game at bay this time.' I focused on the sky once more, shielding my sight from the invasive sun.

It took two weeks for you to ring me up. You had let me enter the gates of your mind, only to throw me out when I got too deep. I wondered if you regretted telling me about Amy. I just wished I could yell out at the treetops that it was OK; I would be there for you. I had tried for a long time to really comprehend the many possibilities of me doing you wrong. I stayed up many nights, wondering if I had said something subliminally that could have stunted your interest in me. Had I insulted you through subconscious words?

I was extremely surprised when you knocked on my door on the evening of April 15th, apologising thoroughly for ignoring me for the past fortnight. I stood in silence, trying my utmost best to be as stubborn as I could. I was contemplating shutting the front door on you, as somewhere inside I still panged with confident sadness. The beauty in your innocent and apologetic eyes was enough to bring angels plummeting from the sky. It didn't happen that day, but it could have. Instead I hugged you like I had never hugged anybody before and tried to hide the sheer hope that had been restored by your presence.

'I'm so sorry for not calling you.' You lay in my bedroom, radiating a wave of unease.

'It's OK Jonah, seriously. You don't need to apologise.'

'I've just been through a really rough couple of days, you know? I don't know… I just felt really weird. I can't really explain it.'

'You can always try. I'm here to listen.' I talked softly to you as you broke apart an empty cigarette packet with your seemingly trembling fingers. I knew that whole pack had probably been wiped out that day.

'Grace, do you want to know how Amy died?' You asked, keeping your eyes on the ceiling as if gazing at a wondrous spectacle. Your brown eyes were so far away. 'The most cliché of them all. Car crash. Police decided to pay us a visit at 10:36pm on July 31st last year.'

'Oh God, Jo. Why didn't you tell me sooner?'

'She went out joyriding. There were five people in that damn car and she was the only one who didn't make it. The only one. How lucky.'

The way you said the latter words made me wonder whether your voice was brewing with sarcasm, or truth. 'My mother just… collapsed. My dad couldn't find anything to say. Brooke had gotten the call from her university campus. I decided to leave the house and buy myself my first packet of Marlboros. The corner shop was pretty lenient with age restrictions, so I got them without hassle. Half of the packet was gone by the time I got back home from the skate park, and it was so dark. My lungs hurt so much by then, but that didn't matter. Nothing else mattered because I knew that my sister was lying in a body bag somewhere.'

Your voice was a broken whisper that had the capacity to lift my eyes towards you and hold them still against you. I immediately felt a razor-sharp pain hit me, right beneath my ribs, in the core of my heart. It was silent for a very long time; a drowning kind of silence.

'I'm so sorry, Jo.'

'It's OK. You didn't kill her.'

I wanted to drop my book and climb onto the bed next to you and hold you so tight. I was paralysed. I didn't really know what to do. I began to acknowledge that you were broken. You would never think of the situation in any other way. So instead I said nothing, and I came onto the bed and sat next to you. We didn't talk for the rest of the night. It was the same silence that lingered around us two weeks ago at Huntington Edge. I guess silence can sometimes be the best remedy.

I let you lean on my shoulder and I stroked your hair.

I hoped that everything would be better in the morning.

Love Grace.

**NINE.**

**'Though I've never been taught to believe in purgatory, it must be a place like this, where we hold our breath while the stories converge. A land where we linger, mourning our nature like obstinate children whose parents warned them about the crack in the sidewalk, the fissure in the glass, the lethal fork in the trail.'**

-Dory Ostermiller, _Outside The Ordinary World_

Cherry came to visit you today. Her hair is now a dark crimson and cut to into an uneven war-pixie do – I saw the photo of her new look pop up on Facebook. She was probably the least injured on the last night I saw you. Amanda Green suffered a dislocated shoulder and a laceration on her right forearm, but she's holding on well. They have all sent me messages of regards in terms of my situation, which is nice.

I have been going to school as a living, breathing zombie; my mind further away than my presence. My eyes go out of focus and despite the constant buzz of conversations passed around school about what had happened couple of weeks ago (yes, they still talk about it), my head never has fully wrapped around it all. People I never talked to tell me how sorry they are and how they wish the best for me. Sometimes I come back to earth, ready to snap. Why is it that people only care about you when a tragedy occurs? It always seems like it's either 'Well, would you look at the weather today,' or 'I'm so sorry for your loss.' There was never any in-between. People only ever feel the need to give you small talk or try and console you on something that didn't even concern them in any way, shape or form. As long as they had something to say, they would say it. I am basically just quite tired of all the unnecessary attention I am receiving.

I had bumped into Amanda two days ago, at school.

'Hey, Grace.' I looked at her arm sling, holding her limb into place. Other than that she was OK. She can live.

'Hey.' I murmured, turning my head to her direction.

'I'm so sorry about Jo.'

'It's fine, honestly.'

'If I knew what was going to happen I wouldn't have let it happen. I should have thought about what we were doing. I just got in, I didn't think twice. I've always had this tendency to follow the crowd – damn, I could probably follow a crowd off the edge of a cliff.'

'Don't blame yourself, Amanda. We are all blaming ourselves. It is nobody's fault.'

'Well, I send my regards to both of your families and I hope he gets better soon, OK?'

I watched her deep blue eyes widen in hope and concern and I couldn't help but feel like I was just being cold about everything. You wouldn't want me to turn bitter, just like Amy wouldn't have expected it from you.

I smiled and thanked her. It was such a shame that I would have to deal with plenty of less sincere, fake ones throughout the duration of the school day. I am so tempted not to go in tomorrow. I there was no way on earth that I can absorb any form of academic information when I am in this dazed, darkened state of mind.

I begin to get angry at times because of how selfish you were in doing what you did. It's like you completely forgot that lives interweave and connect, and whatever you did would affect other people, similar to a chain reaction. You tried so hard to forget about the pain, that you ended up throwing your heavy load onto my fragile back. Your pain hit me harder than I ever thought it could.

I tried to understand that it was not all your fault; you ultimately didn't want any of this to happen. You didn't want Amy's life to end so instantly. She was your only sister. There was a part of you inside her, somewhere.

It the end, I should just think that in the end, it will be nobody's fault.

I dreamt about Amy one night.

We were both walking through the National Park in the shadowy dusk, the figures of trees towering over us like beasts. Her eyes were glowing bright silver and her face was almost translucent and as I tried to trace her skin, she was almost as palpable as her current existence. She was not real nor was she really with me. She was just an apparition.

The dreams come and go throughout every hour of the night until my voice pours with pleading hollers that bounce on the walls of my bedroom at four in the morning. Sweat sticks material onto my skin and my heart rate increases rapidly. My mother comes to my room to rock me to sleep, and I can't help noticing how full the moon is sometimes. Her soft skin caresses the goose bumps that spread across mine, even in the warmth of the indoors. I can feel her silky hair fall onto my back as she holds me in. I imagine that this must have been what it was like when I was a baby, wrapped in my mother's arms. She would have expected the nightmares of my youth to have ended a long time ago, but here she is, comforting me. Every night, I watch the moon until it becomes nothing but a white blur, slowly growing distorted and dark as my eyelids begin to slide over my sight.

'I need to tell you something and you need to _swear _that you will not tell any other living soul in this world.' I spoke to Eva couple of days after I had talked to you. The dream still continued to haunt me, taking up every free space in my mind. The last night you and I spent together was all that I could think about. I needed to really get it off of my chest before it began to corrode at my mind.

'Do you still promise?' I asked Eva as we stood, hanging on the bridge on the way to the Town Centre. Car upon car came driving past on the surprisingly busy motorway beside us.

'Is it that thing about Jo?' She rested her elbow against the rough carved rock wall of the bridge.

'Pretty much.'

'I'm ready.'

'The other day, he told me that he had a sister who passed away.'

Eva kept quiet for a second, trying to comprehend what I just said. 'Jesus. I wasn't expecting that.' She frowned. 'When did all of this happen?'

'Last summer. That's really why he moved here I think, to speed up the grieving process. He also had to start taking meds to help him out. I literally had no idea about this until he told me.'

'Oh my God. Do you think he's told anybody else?'

'I wouldn't assume so. I don't know who else he would tell. I know that it's an extremely sensitive subject to him, so I think it took him a lot of courage to tell me. It obviously must be a painful thing to talk about.'

'I know, right? Well I'm extremely sorry, Grace. I would tell you to send my regards, but I don't think that would work out. Why don't you just give me a hug instead?'

And Eva embraced me on the bridge; bringing me into her arms just I wrapped mine around her.

She also told me that day how the arguments she had been having with her parents were intensifying by the day.

'They don't like Dylan.'

'What? Why? He's a good guy.'

'I know that. We all know that. You know my parents though, Grace.' And it's true, I did. I wonder if they still hate Dylan now, despite of all what has happened.

'They'll think I'll do the dumb things I did when I was younger. But if they restrict me like they did last time, it can only happen again. Obviously I won't let it… but I just think they need to let me breathe a little. I'm sorry Grace. This problem isn't as near as traumatic as yours.'

'It's not a competition Eva.'

'They think I'm still who I was three years ago. I'm so stupid. I still think back at that and wonder how I could have possibly thought I was in love by the slightest. I tried to make it this star-crossed romance and it wasn't.' Eva was close to tearing up at this point. 'But I see something in Dylan. I never saw it in Clinton. I wish my parents would see it.'

Back when she was fourteen, she ran off for two weeks with her older brother's band mate. They stayed at a motel sixty miles away from home and had bitter disputes almost all of the time. Eva was close to taking the keys and driving back home herself, had she known the way back, and how to drive. She had no money or means of contact.

The police caught up with them and she came back home fine, but her parents never let it go. A part of her couldn't let it go. Even I couldn't because she was my best friend and for a while, she was missing from my life.

Since then, her relationship with her family has never really been the same. She's decided to lean her head on other peoples' shoulders; people that she doesn't need to share a lifelong commitment to, like acquaintances and short-term meaningless ardours.

In a way, she's been putting on this façade around other people for a long time. I know for certain that she throws off her mask around me. It's just always in her eyes, or the things she says and does. I know she is sincere, and I felt it from her that day.

We soon left the bridge and made our way to my house to cover up our sadness with small talk and forgetful gossip.

Love Grace.

**TEN.**

**'I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, and I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh and light lanterns along your spine so you know that there's nothing but light when I see you.' **

-Shinji Moon

'Is it OK to talk about Amy?' I asked you once, perched on your bed as you sorted out photography on your desk. You turned around. 'Sure. Ask me anything. I think it should be OK.'

'Well... I don't know what to say. I just meant – if we it would be fine to talk about her or whatever, like it won't bother you.'

'It shouldn't bother me. It's easy to talk to you about it though; sometimes I just want to spill out my darkest secrets but I bite my tongue. But I think we should take the heavier topics slow.' You shuffled through some Polaroid snaps. 'I guess it took me too long to talk about Amy and I just wanted it to be all the right timing, so I ended up leaving you to guess.'

'It's fine.'

'It's not. I just need to face the facts that she's not around and have the strength to tell other people.'

'You don't need to feel obliged to do anything. It's up to you.'

You smiled softly, arranging the printed snaps into categories. I caught a glimpse of the nature photography you took in the National Park. I was wondering where that photo you took of me was.

'Well, it was Alvarado City street festival, and everybody was having a great time, up until it all kicked off right at the end.'

'What happened?'

'Something bad always ends the street festival. Always. Mainly brawls, but _something_. This time, everything seemed OK. I went home early with my girlfriend at the time, Sophia. She got a lift back home by her cousin around an hour before the whole incident. I remember her calling me, crying like mad after I got the news, and I was sitting at the park. I never said anything the whole time, and I just sort of hung up on her after a while. I couldn't find the words to say anything because it didn't seem real.'

I kept silent and let you explain anything else you felt you had to say. 'The crash site was around a mile away from the festival venue, and there were a lot of ambulance around the scene. Obviously I didn't see this for myself, but many people were walking home from the festival and I got the message somehow.'

After a while of more silence, I decided to break it. 'This must be really hard to talk about.'

'I thought it would be, and that's why I never did. You're the first person I've explained this to who didn't know anything. It's like digesting the news again for me, but it goes down easier this time. I think anyway.'

I came off the bed and sat on the floor near you, when you decided to move your work and sit opposite me, cross-legged. The photos were laid out between us and I flipped through them carefully. They were mostly snaps you caught since being in Huntington. I could see disposables from parties you had attended (and hosted) as well as really nice high-def pictures of things, like the sky or the Huntington skyline. You took many photos at the Edge too, which captured the exquisiteness of it. I could tell you had a knack for your hobby, so much that it was much more than that. It could take you places if you tried hard enough. It still can, if you come back.

'I put all the photos of you somewhere else,' you smirked.

'Where? Can I see them? Jo, I probably look awful.'

'Quit complaining. They are probably some of my best works.'

I couldn't help but feel the heat rush up my neck, to my face. I tried a smile but that most likely appeared as a strained grimace.

'I love landscape stuff. I think I prefer portrait, though. You can fish out so much from someone's expression, and hold onto it longer. It's like freezing time on someone. You know how they were feeling at that exact moment. Like for example, over at the National Park, I could see the lust in your eyes in that shot.'

'Shut up. You're just saying that.'

'I'm not lying. I can see it in you, right now. That's how I remember.' Your stare never evaded mine. I laughed, trying to keep myself from hearing my own heartbeat.

'This is the part where we're supposed to make out,' you grin moving in closer to my airspace. I don't know why I did this, but I backed out, freezing. I think I forgot how to breathe. I tried distracting myself, thinking of really trivial things like the eyelash on your cheek or the cameras sitting on your desk. I know I had done this before, but I didn't think I could do it again. I think you knew I wasn't up for it, so you decided to spontaneously lie down on the carpet, turning on your side to face me. I moved the photos to the side and lay beside you, watching your face turn vertical as all the other vertical objects turned horizontal.

'Sometimes I feel really guilty for not being there for her.' You spoke in a hushed tone.

'Why?'

'I mean, I could have prevented it all. I could have stayed with her at the festival instead of going home.'

'Jonah, you're just as responsible for her fate as anyone else in this world. Please, don't blame yourself.'

'It's just that it's always there in the back of my mind. The thought that I didn't stay with her that day or that I didn't call her beforehand. I could have done _something_. I know that. Everybody knows that.'

I held onto your free hand, interweaving my fingers into the gaps between yours. 'Jonah, let me tell you something. Let's switch this around a little. Let's say you're the deceased brother and Amy is just full of this severe culpability for your death even though there was no way that she could have really stopped it. Imagine if she spent every living moment hating every inch of herself because she felt as if she murdered you. If you were watching her from above or whatever, watching her drink as many Beck's as she could and killing herself off with cigarettes, how would it make you feel to know that you left her, feeling like she had killed you?'

'I suppose you're right.' You said, looking right at me. 'I just can't help but feel that way. I'm sorry, I can't.'

My Religious Ed teacher stopped me from leaving at the end of last period today. I was feeling a little bit better when I woke up this morning. Somewhere in my body, the alarm rang and told me it was about time I was enthusiastic about life. You're still sleeping, but you're not dead. So I shouldn't act like it's the end of _my_ life yet.

'I know what has happened to you must be a real shock. I know I shouldn't be prying into your personal life, however Jonah was a student in my class and I feel it's best we should try and find it more comfortable to bring the subject up.' I watched the sunlight shine off of her rimmed glasses.

'In class?'

'No, Grace. Not in class. Just after class, sometimes. Like this.'

'I don't really understand, Mrs Patterson.'

I could see her stall a little bit. 'I just want you to know that I'm always here to talk.'

'About what, exactly?'

'If there is every any issue you have, with anything,'

'Thank you so much, Mrs Patterson, I really appreciate your offer for help. But the issue is over. I'm just learning to deal with it and hope for the best. Sorry. I will be OK, trust me.'

I turned to leave the room before she stopped me.

'Grace?'

'Yes?'

'I had a daughter who suffered a serious head injury after falling from a balcony on holiday. She never woke up from it, but she never would be able to do anything at all without life support. We had to turn it off. She was only twenty-two.'

'Oh,' I breathed. I didn't know if I can deal with any more bad news. I wish I had left the room before she could say any more. 'I'm sorry, Mrs Patterson.'

'It's fine, now. That was almost eight years ago now. It's just that... I waited and waited and I hoped and prayed... so I sort of understand how you feel. I know what it's like to wait for the news. Any kind of news. I'm honestly there for you.' I didn't know for sure if I could see moisture in her eyes, but I began to cry myself, anyway. It's as if I was a water balloon hanging at the top of a building and I suddenly dropped. Tears just spilled from me and at first I didn't acknowledge her arms wrapping around me.

'I never stopped hoping, right until the end that she could come back. Even though it was near impossible. I want you to, OK?'

'Yes.'

'Do you want any tissues?' she asked after untangling herself from me. She went into one of her drawers and fished for a box of Kleenex.

'Thank you.' I uttered with a voice higher pitched than normal. 'Thank you for your help, honestly.'

I didn't want to say anything else, so I turned to the door straight away.

You know, sometimes I wish I could line up everybody I know, but not well enough, and find out all of their darkest secrets. It's surprising how the worst parts of our minds are hidden away from everyone but haunt us still. It's like the elephant in our own rooms, where we're lock in solitary confinement and only we can deal with it ourselves. If we all just let out our problems simultaneously, we'd have nothing to hold against each other really. I think once you know the feeling in someone's heart when they cannot sleep at three in the morning, then you know who they truly are.

Love Grace.

**ELEVEN.**

**__****'Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.'**

-Louise Erdrich, _The Painted Drum_

'He has been through more than you initially thought,' my mother said to me once. It had been almost two weeks since our first date, when you told me.

'Yeah… I would have never expected it. It's really like it came out of nowhere.'

'It can be hard to talk about stuff like that. As long as you are there for him, it should be OK.'

'I know. I'll never _not_ be there.'

'I'm sure you will.' She sipped on her red wine. 'You know, when your father left, I ended almost ninety percent of communication with family and friends for a long time. I couldn't find the words to say that he was gone. There was no way to put it.'

'Do you still miss him?'

'Every minute of every day. And the worst part is that I know that he's out there somewhere, but I'll never know if he misses me, or you. And I guess he might not. He hasn't written back in a long time.'

'He might have forgotten about us.' I said, half joking.

'How can he choose to forget such a huge chunk of his life? We met in high school. We spent at least thirteen years side by side. We had _you. _Then he just packed his bags. He can't have just _forgotten._He hasn't.'

'I suppose.' I uttered. 'You know, I just sort of want to track him down and send him a really long, detailed letter of what he's done to us. That would be the last thing I ever say to him, unless he comes back and explains everything, down to a tee. Then we can tell him to get lost.'

My mother smiled. 'I wish it was that easy.'

'It can be. Literally. I could just email him and give him a piece of my mind. Mother, just remember that you are so much more brave than he ever was and will be. Sticking around and picking up all the pieces he left behind while he ran away from them.'

Her smile wavered slightly. 'Do you know, he started off by saying that he was going on a vacation? To have some alone time, to 'find himself', whatever that means. I could just tell he was getting bored of us. I mean, I wasn't too concerned that he was losing interest in me, but his _daughter_... I was completely angry. How could he leave you?'

'It doesn't matter anymore, Mom. I'm not too hurt about it. I know it wasn't my fault. It was all him. He was afraid.'

'I should have known from the beginning that he would eventually leave.'

'I bet you've told yourself that so many times, right?'

'Possibly.' She replied. I can remember reaching out to her for a hug, embracing her, feeling her soft hair between my fingers. 'We should move on now. Let's flip the page.'

To me, time is something we distinguish as a matter of progression. If we observe it at the moment, we typically divide it into the past, present and future. The past and the future are illusory concepts, while only the present is real. For example, today's breakfast and whatever you just did a second ago will cease to exist after it have happened. The future is just as imaginary, because time cannot exist before and after it has happened. So I guess that is why it is just important to focus on what his happening right now and not what has happened or what is yet to occur, because they are just recollections or premonitions in your mind for the meantime. That is why we should never hold on to the past for too long.

A cluster of us took a trip down to the Edge on a particularly intensely hot day, bringing an unrestricted hoard of drinks to stay hydrated. Soon enough, the last school term had soon concluded and summer was creeping closer by. We were getting prepared for summer break and reminiscing junior year.

This summer was the kind that could apologise for the winter and you'd delightedly accept it. The heat was promising, scorching elevated temperatures at midday, scattering sunlight over the Valley and turning it emerald due to the flourishing greenery. Flowers of all kinds were appearing as if they had never left. As the golden, tanned leaves fragmented into the flourishing earth, they grew back on every oak and pine tree as they promised they would.

It was one of those days that caused your garments to cling to your moist skin and make you worship the thought of hydration and air conditioning. We lay on the hard rock of the cliff, basking in heat waves that radiated from the cosmic eternity of space.

It had been almost a month or so since you first told me about your sister and we talked seldom about her since. Obviously we still talked; just about everything otherwise. It was OK, though.

It didn't really feel like an elephant in the room, or anything like that.

We stayed at the Edge after everyone else left, watching the sun descend over Huntington Valley. The evening had scattered an orange light across the skyline, which lightened to a soft pink and amalgamated into a light blue the higher up you looked. It was like a blend of vibrant tie-dye colours spreading across the horizon.

I can remember my fingers clutching onto yours, mingling with the dry sand that spread beneath. I looked at the beauty of your features, which were highlighted by the daylight, drenching your skin in a Heavenly spirit.

'It's Amy's memorial service in a couple of weeks,' you said. 'I'm travelling back to Alvarado for a while around the event. There are going to be hundreds of people coming to set off lanterns on the City Lake in the evening, at the end of the festival in the evening.'

'That is so sweet. How did you find out?' I asked.

'Brooke called. I also talked to a couple of old friends.' You lit up a Marlboro. 'So many people were like, 'I'm so sorry for your loss, Jonah. She was an amazing person. She was so beautiful; she was so funny, blah blah blah…' and the whole time I was thinking, 'Why did you have to specifically wait until she was dead to say these things? Why couldn't you have once said, 'She is an amazing person, she is so beautiful, she is so funny'. Why did you think she only deserved vocal compliments when she wasn't around to hear them?'

'I guess that's part of paying tribute, Jonah.'

'Really?' you turned to me with a deprecating look etched into your features.

'Is that so? Because if that's the case, no one has to say anything when I die. They can all just scatter my ashes and keep damn quiet. I'm not having someone who cared nought me about say how great I was. I don't want anybody's pity. Amy wouldn't have wanted it either.'

I let the indignant dust settle in your voice before changing the topic.

'Which one of you was born first?'

You smiled, 'Me. She followed five minutes after. We had been racing each other ever since,

Trying to see if she could even the score. Of course, I beat her at almost everything. Soccer, cross country, guitar playing, lying; stuff like that. The only thing she was better at was winning people over. She just had that charm, you know? It was already in her eyes, she was born with it.'

'I think she may have passed the charm onto you,' I laughed.

'What can you say? I'm a Casanova.' You laughed back before planting a kiss, right on the top of my head where I relaxed in your arms.

Soon you after, you uttered to me how you hadn't felt this content in a really long time.

You told me that you had almost forgotten what it was like to grieve or to feel the pain of loss.

In your eyes, you had learned to forget.

'Amy's probably spying on us, somewhere up there or whatever. And she's probably super jealous because I beat her at the race to see who would fall in love first.'

Love Grace.

**TWELVE.**

**'What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I want to kneel as it falls over me like rain, gather it up with lace and silk, and press it over myself again.'**

-Anaïs Nin, _Henry and June_

July the 4th; American Independence Day. Also my seventeenth birthday. I still don't know how I managed to survive so long on this terrible planet. It's quite awkward being born on a day that people celebrate for other purposes, for example Christmas. It's like the entire world is so contented and thrilled, brought together by this one subject. And you're just there in the corner, trying to join in as well has have your own celebration. I've dealt with it all my life. On the bright side, at least I get an awesome firework display every year.

You arrived on my front lawn that morning, holding a bouquet of flowers and a group of helium balloons, spelling out _Happy Birthday! _In inflated letters. I can remember running up to you in my tattered year-old vans, wearing my favourite floral green knee-length dress and an extra layer of red lipstick for sensual effect, before kissing you with all the affection in my bones. I laughed after, looking at your light-red smothered face.

'I got you this,' you took out a small black velvet box from your jean pocket as we stood in the hallway, and upon opening it revealed an amethyst rock necklace. I lay the violet crystal between my fingers, analysing it as the light glimmered off every surface.

'Amy and I always gave each other presents on our birthday; it was just common courtesy, I guess. I remember the year before she died, she bought me a second-hand Polaroid instant-shot camera, and I found this from an antique store. I don't think she would mind that I gave it to you. She'd probably like you anyway.' You smiled bashfully and I fell into your chest for an embrace. 'You shouldn't have. Honestly.'

We lounged in the garden as close and distant family flocked from all sides of ton to celebrate and enjoy a barbeque; half for George Washington's reign over the USA, half for the birth of my pitiful existence. My mother's sister Carol came with her five-year-old son Timothy, whom I hadn't seen in a few months, despite living in the same town. My Uncle George also came along with my cousin Heidi, who happens to be the same age as me. She attends the slightly rowdier high school downtown.

You told me how your parents began going to Church every single Sunday after Amy died. You believed it was just to distract them. They didn't need to believe in a God before; now it was the only hope they had. You wondered how they could worship a God after he potentially let their child die. They just needed something to look to, to nurture the wounds of a missing child,

So they ultimately looked to a higher force. For a while I had never actually wondered what is must have been like for them; to bring two beautiful children into the world, not thinking that one would go down before they did.

I guess it's worse not knowing what will happen. Death is so much scarier than life because if you think about it, life would be meaningless and hold no volume without the thought of it. Because life can be scary and you _know_ it. However, you don't know anything about death, that's what makes it scarier. And for someone you love to die without you getting the chance to acknowledge it must be the most frightening thing in the universe. It must be hard to really consume, hovering over your head, hitting you hard every time you would try and process it. Being alive is scary. Being dead is scarier despite it having no depth or meaning

Whatsoever. It's just a pitch black forever.

It's so ironic that we spent our lives fearing or anticipating death despite the fact that it is the exact same destiny that we all share.

'I've got an idea,' you told me in the evening. The fireworks in the town square were set to go off in about an hour's time. It had always been tradition for me to go and watch them. Sometimes I would go with all of our family, or just me and my mother. Eva would always accompany me. I can remember times when we would hold sparklers into the warm air, with the moisture of the melting American flag face paints on our cheeks. The fair would also come around at this time and as a youngster I spent my birthday there, riding on every carousel and playing on every arcade game to win credits.

'We should go on a bike ride down North Hill,' you suggested.

'Are you kidding me? That's dangerous. I swear to God we won't make it to the bottom alive.'

North Hill is a road that goes out to half a mile. Some days it can be empty enough to ride bikes right down to the bottom at full speed. I myself had never gone down it, but I've witnessed the thrill that people experience as they begin to plummet at one-hundred miles per hour down the steepest stretch in Huntington. I know for sure that it's definitely an adrenaline raiser.

'Come on. I know it will be so much fun. You can hitch on to my back and we'll fly down. If you do it, we can go on another date to that diner. Then we can go down to the square and watch the fireworks. Sound like a plan?'

'Fair enough.' I sighed.

I don't know if I had ever been so scared in my entire life. I looked down the end of the hill and it seemed more like a mile away than half. I've never had a significant fear of heights; however this was something I had never seen before. Imagine if Huntington Edge was a little less steep, and you had to ride down it, being supported by two thin metallic framed, rubber wheels. That was basically North Hill.

I latched my arms around your torso, holding on so tight I was probably suffocating you. My heart raced violently as if it were trying to rip through my cold chest. Goose bumps formed along the surface of my skin, despite the divine summer evening heat. I couldn't help noticing how beautifully the town glimmered in the skyline.

'Are you ready?' You asked, clutching onto the handlebars.

'No!' I yelled.

I suddenly experienced a feeling similar to falling suddenly and losing all the feeling in your stomach, being replaced by a frenzy of butterflies. I screamed so loud that the locals probably thought they heard a homicide being committed. Everything turned into a blur, like water running into ink and I felt extremely weightless as if the wheels had been suspended into the skies above. I closed my eyes and let the adrenaline rush through my blood as my hair flew crazily behind me. I honestly didn't think it would be humanly possible to try and stop. We flew down the concrete hill until we had reached a terminal velocity, in which you began to apply the brakes. I could almost smell the burning of the tyre as the friction heated it up. It felt like eternity before we finally came to a gradual stop.

'Oh my God.' I sighed, breathless. My heart was still trying to stop panicking. I collapsed on a patch of grass nearby, taking deep breaths. You followed, sitting beside me.

'That was insane.' You said.

'I said I wasn't ready.' I replied.

'That's why I went. I knew we'd be up there all night if I listened to you.'

'That's considerable of you.'

'Whatever. You enjoyed it anyway, didn't you? It's like a rollercoaster ride, free of charge.'

'Yeah, and ten times more fatal.'

'You had fun though, right?'

'Yeah, I did.'

I couldn't believe it had been over seven months since we had first met. The memories of the fast food restaurant took me back to the night that I first witnessed your heavenly presence as you attempted to light a Marlboro on the front lawn. I couldn't have ever looked this far into the future and or predicted something like this. I was so lucky to have you.

I probably looked a mess as we entered the diner, with my dishevelled hair and dress, creased by the harsh wind that picked up as we propelled down North Hill.

After sharing a feast of oily fries as we did seven months prior, we made our way down to the town centre to see everybody congregated in the square. You suspended me onto your shoulders where I clutched onto a blinding white sparkler. As the sky burned and cracked into a million colours, I couldn't deny how beautiful this birthday was.

Love Grace.

**THIRTEEN.**

**'Do you realise how devoted I am to you, all the same? There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, dearest Honey.'**

-Virginia Woolf

I stood with my mother in our kitchen one evening.

'I don't get it. Why can't I go?'

'Because it's all too soon.'

'Well he invited me. His parents invited me.'

'I know, but...'

'But what?'

'It's possible to spend even a little time away from him?'

'Obviously. But he asked me. I can't just say no for no valid reason.'

My mother sighed, 'Do you really want to do this?'

'Yeah, I guess.' I lay on the sofa in the living room, talking to my mother drink a glass of wine. 'I mean, it's such a huge deal. If they didn't want me to come at all, I don't think they would have asked.'

'How long is it until?'

'We come back the day after the ceremony.'

'Grace, I just want you to know that I'm letting you go because I trust you and I trust him and his family, and I know everything will be fine, ultimately. I think it is will all respect that you can commemorate Amy's life with the people that loved her. But this is as far as I will push it.'

'I think you're just scared of being alone for a while, right?' I replied. 'Call old friends. Talk to Grandma and Grandpa. Go shopping. You don't have to stay cooped up in this house. It's summertime.' I smiled. 'Thank you for letting me go, though.'

On the morning of the 30th of July, we prepared for a 300-mile journey west to Alvarado City. It was a conscious decision I had to make to come with you, and my mother asked me numerous times if I was really up for it. When you offered, I leapt for the chance. As much as I didn't know your sister in person, it felt a huge honour for me to celebrate her life just as much as anyone else.

You seemed extremely calm on the day of our departure. I kept a watch out for you in the morning once I had crammed probably four-hundred pounds of luggage into a tiny backpack at home and kissed my mother a million goodbyes.

We planned on getting to Alvarado in the late afternoon and spending the night at your cousins' house. The memorial service was going to take place at around noon, and then afterwards you would meet up with old friends. There were going to be sky lanterns set off over the City Lake at dusk. We would leave for home the day after.

We headed off later that day, with your father driving and your mother riding shotgun. You decided to read _To Kill a Mockingbird _after I recommended it to you. The mountainous view that ran long both horizons on each side of the road were captivating, and I could have spent days watching the hills roll by.

We arrived in Alvarado circa seven o'clock, when the summer sun was beginning to descend, shattering violet colours across the sky. You had a sentimental reunifying with your distant family as well as Brooke and I stood back as you were hugged and kissed by the household. They asked you if you were feeling better, to which you had replied, 'I'm better than ever.'

Brooke hugged me as I entered like your mother did, and I was almost shocked at how identical she looks to her. Matching hair, eyes, and general features, down to the smallest aspect. The only thing that distinguished them was the age gap.

'How's college?' Your father asked Brooke as we congregated for dinner at your cousins' dining table.

'It's great. I've just got another two years left, though.' She sighed.

'A law degree is a big deal. It won't just appear overnight.'

'Yeah, I know dad. Thanks for the memo.'

'Do you know what you're studying university yet, Jo?' your mother asked.

'No.'

'Well, you have senior year left when you go back to school and that's it. You've got to make a decision soon.'

'Have you and Dad taken the role of Captain Obvious today?' Brooke retorted. 'How about we stop talking about things we don't need to talk about. We have a special guest here today.' She turned to me. Your Aunt Vera smiled at me from the opposite end of the table. 'Are you enjoying Alvarado City so far?' She changed the subject.

'Yeah, it's beautiful. First off, the weather is already impressive.' I didn't want to be the awkward person that had ended up talking about the local climate, but it only seemed convenient in this setting. The heat was like nothing I had ever experienced in Huntington. If I honestly thought it was hot over there, I guess I had just had a revelation that my hometown doesn't account for the rest of the world. I underestimated the amount of sunscreen I'd actually require.

'What time are you going to the lantern show tomorrow?' Brooke asked you.

'After the festival. Doesn't it start at like, eight or nine?'

'Well, I don't know. All I know is that _a lot _of people are coming. Like, two high schools worth. The senior leadership team at Alvarado High have organised it, as well as some road safety charity. Any money and proceeds go to the charity I think, as well as half of the profit made from the festival.'

'Awesome. I wish it didn't have to be like that, though. You know, raising awareness of something after it has happened. It's kind of dumb.'

'Well, it's better than nothing.'

'Fair enough.'

'Besides, Amy would be flattered.'

'She did crave any form of attention.' You smirked, shaking your head.

You and I shared a spare bedroom, each getting our own single beds which sat at opposite side of the boudoir. We spent the entire first night talking in hushed whispers and studying the books in what seemed like a miniature library of paperbacks shelves in the room. The memorial service was tomorrow and I suppose we really should have just slept to be prepared for the big day ahead. There was a certain feeling that night; an infinite feeling. And I don't know whether it was when I decided to share a singular bed with you and we lay with a coating of sheets covering us as we stared and at the ceiling and talked quietly about everything that we could possibly talk about, but the serenity in my heart, and probably in yours, was enough to bring a raging storm to sleep.

Love Grace.

**FOURTEEN.**

**'How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.'**

-A.A Milne, _Winnie-the-Pooh_

We woke up a couple of hours later, groggy and dazed. Dust floated in the air illuminated by the warm morning sunlight in the window opposite. I woke up first, looking over your sleeping body. It was one those moments when the look of vulnerability shone through you, which seldom happened unless you were asleep. The way your lashes flickered lightly and your dark hair flowed along the pillow and your breath was slow and tranquil always dissolved my soul. Despite the normally strong sense of masculinity that you always held, you looked just like a child and I loved all those sides of you. The side where I felt like you could protect me with no effort, and the side when I felt like you needed just as much protection.

We got ready to leave the house, two hours before the memorial began so you could go and meet up with some old friends over at the local skate park. It had been almost eight months since you last saw them, and for some, even communicated in any form. You couldn't wait to show them how much better you were, and neither could I.

We got changed into formal clothing to attend the church service at two o'clock, where family and friends and locals would be attending. I slipped into a champagne coloured long sleeved cut-out detail lace dress, and for the first time, I saw you wear something more sophisticated than the lazy-indie look you always tended to go for. You wore a white cotton dress shirt accompanied with black trousers.

When arrived at the skate park, we approached a fairly large group of people – around twelve – all congregated in formal wear, hanging around near a half-pipe. I watched as you yelled to catch their attention and they all spun around, purely stunned that you were back. Soon enough you were mobbed by the cluster of thrilled comrades that you hadn't seen in so long. I stood back and let you lap in all the love that was passed around through every person.

When your former sweetheart Sofia saw you appear, I had never seen such an extreme relief in my life. She ran towards you and flung herself into your arms on the edge of tears. I noticed her straight away because of how you once described her golden red hair and fair skin that was dotted with freckles on almost every visible surface. She looked so pretty in a pleated frill, tie-waisted bandeau frock.

'I missed you so much,' she uttered, trying her best not to let her breaking voice crack. You smiled and hugged her for a long time, soaking in the memories of your past life. She asked you if you were doing better and you told her yes, of course you are.

'This is Grace.' You introduced me to her and the majority of the friend group as some had already dispersed to continue on their own conversation. She smiled, approaching me for a hug.

'Hi, Grace. I'm Sofia. Nice to meet you.'

Sofia and I perched on park stairs afterwards whilst you enjoyed long discussions with the others.

'How long have you been with Jonah? She asked me.

'A couple of months. It's nothing too long-term yet.'

'Ah. So he told you all about Amy.'

'Yeah.'

'I'm kind of surprised that he would do that because it always seemed to be the last thing he wanted to talk about. I guess things change.' She looked out to the skate park, where you could be seen gliding along the concrete on a borrowed skateboard.

'He's OK about it now. I mean, I know he was pretty messed up about it all, but he's fine.' I said.

'Does he still take his meds?' she asked in a hushed tone. I lied, 'No. not anymore.'

'That's nice to know. I'm just glad he's in a better place.'

The memorial took place in small church in the afternoon, where people began filing in to every church pew. I sat towards the front next to you and your parents. It was a Catholic memorial service, so a lot of prayers where held at the beginning.

The speeches came soon after. I didn't know that you had written one yourself because you never told me, but I came to the realisation with I saw you clutch onto a piece of paper in your suit jacket pocket. You seemed somewhat panicky as soon as the ceremony began and the prayers and hymns ended.

You parents were the first people to make to the podium.

'First of all, we'd like to thank you all for joining us here to mark the one year anniversary of our daughter's passing. It is a huge respect to both the family and Amy herself.' Your father's voice resounded through the church walls.

'Amethyst Christopher was an extremely strong individual who radiated an air of enthusiasm and virtuous charm. We spent sixteen amazing years raising an Angel before she had to be sent back to do her duty. She had so much passion and compassion, a loving nature and a curious mind. She was everything a teenage girl could ever aspire to be. With a flaring popularity at school, she had the ability to befriend any person; similar to our extremely welcoming son, Jonah. She had huge ambitions to become a journalist or a news reporter, travelling the world for breaking news. Her most favourite thing to do was tell us all intriguing stories, so there's no wonder that she wanted to search that avenue of work. She was very determined in everything she put work into. Nothing was ever done half-heartedly. She lived and loved to her full potential.

'Since her passing, we have learnt a lot of things about life. The first thing is how quickly it really flashes by. Whether you're sixteen or eighty years old, life will still become limited. Each breath you take is one breath closer to ceasing existence. She taught us to do everything we did with heart and pride; because that is the only way you can enjoy the rapidity of life to its fullest. At times, we gave up on ourselves and on everybody else for the sole reason that Amy and Jonah were the only two people that gave our lives true significance, and now one of them was no longer with us. We want you all not to mourn any more, if any of you are. Just remember that she was once here, and somewhere in everyone's hearts, she still is.'

The whole church stayed silent as they let the words of your father's speech sink in. I clasped onto your hand softly as your parents departed the podium.

A montage of videos appeared on a large screen at the front of the hall, whilst Amy's favourite song - _Pawn Shop Blues _by Lana Del Rey – blared through speakers in the church. This was the first time I had ever seen Amy in action, doing things she would have done if alive. Her character mirrored yours in every way possible; from the way she talked down to the way she moved her hands, smiled or stood. She was so eerily identical to you, it practically scared me. As soon as I saw her in motion; the way she acted and talked, I felt wistfulness for somebody that I had never even met.

'I haven't planned much to say. I think I literally wrote down like three lines,' you told the audience as you stood behind the church podium. You moved stray hair from in front of your face and locking it behind your ear.

'I think my parents basically said it all. But yeah, she was an amazing sister. She made up the majority of my company as a kid; I've never known anyone as much as I've known her. There was some sort of telepathy that we shared to an extent. I'm guessing it must just be one of the many perks of being a twin. We could translate and share emotions, and whenever she was happy, so was I. I miss Amy every second of every day and most people know that. I'm just glad to have celebrated her life with you all.'

Some people stayed for food and refreshments and your parents decided to hang around, but most people left once the ceremony was over.

Everybody that we met at the skate park decided outside the church that we all make our way down to Sofia's house to get changed into casualwear, and hang out before the festival in the evening. We all decided to sit in a circle on Sofia's living room floor, passing roll-ups and alcoholic refreshments around. I may have taken a few sips, but there's no way I even bothered trying a drag. If anything, I wanted to prove that my will was a least a little stronger than my mother's when it came to unnecessary habits.

'We should do a séance to Amy.' A girl called Rachel piped up, tapping cigarette ash on an empty coke can in front of her. She had extremely long dark hair and intimidating shadowy eyes. She sat right at the back in the ceremony, sporting a black laced dress and dominant red lips. 'Jo, is that OK with you?'

You looked up at her and everyone else. I could tell that Rachel was the kind of girl who would take risks of making potentially uncomfortable statements. She didn't seem to mind, and neither did you. 'Sure, whatever. I don't believe in that crap anyway. How do we do this?'

'It doesn't have to be legit. We could just light candles and link hands and say something.' She responded.

'How would we know it worked?' Sofia inquired.

'Gosh, Sofia, I don't know. Let's just pray to her or something.'

A couple of guys went with Sofia to find some candles to spark up with their lighters and place them in the centre of our circle.

'I'll start first,' Alexa, one of Amy's closest friends began. I slid my right hand into yours and my left was tangled with Sofia's beside me. 'We first met in kindergarten. I remember how you and Jo were new to our class, and happened to be the shyest kids in the room. But we were all fascinated with you because we thought twins could only be the same gender. I think I must have been the least annoying with the questions, because you took a liking to me anyway. Or maybe I'm just too awesome. Anyway, we never left each other's side. There may have been a two-month hiatus in high school when you started dating some idiot in the year above, but all was good after that. I wonder if you can remember that concert we went to a couple of years back? We didn't even know the band but we thought we'd take a trip out. You ended up getting the lead singer's foot in your face after he surfed the crowd. Good times.'

'OK, but that has nothing on the time when you decided to go skinny dipping in Alvarado Lake at one in the morning,' Rachel smiled. The smell of the candles was a strong vanilla that began to waft between us.

'Or when Jo stole your diary in ninth grade and brought it into school.'

'I don't think she'd ever forgiven me for that,' you smiled, loosening your grip on my fingers. The small flames danced in the middle of the floor. 'Well, I'm sorry for the millionth time, if you hear me.'

'OK, my turn,' Sofia sat up straight. 'We were hanging out for a while and then I told you in secret that I had a crush on your brother. I was obviously extremely embarrassed when you told him, but I suppose I saw it coming. It all worked out anyway, didn't it?' I saw you smile tenderly at her, but there was a distant melancholy hidden in your expression. I think I must have been the only one who had seen it. 'I remember a year ago today how happy you were. The world was at your feet, and everyone was so sure that you would have a future. There was no way you knew that you would be ripped apart from us, so suddenly. At least you got justice, because the driver _was _jailed for his offences, but that's not enough. We all miss you so much and I kinda hope it's like _The Lovely Bones, _where you can at least know that we still talk about you and think about you all the time. There's no way we'll ever let you go.' Sophia finished, wiping away a silent tear. The silence was like diving deep into the Mariana trench, with the pressure above crushing your frame.

Alexa eventually broke it. 'Hey, Grace. Do you have anything to say?' I watched all eyes flick to my bearing. 'Uhm. I don't know.'

'Say anything.'

'Wow. Uhm. Hi, Amy. My name is Grace. I come from Huntington Valley, so I'm not really much of a local. I have heard so much about you from your brother. I've seen photos of you and I can just tell that you were a beautiful person inside as well as out. I think we would have made great friends. I miss you, even though we never met. It's like a weird sort of nostalgia, when you listen to a sad song and you end up yearning for something you've never experienced, as if you did in a past life. I miss you because I guess you were a gap in my life that I didn't know never got filled. But I still see you. I see you in Jonah.'

I should have really just expected that something bad would happen at Alvarado City Street Festival, because it did anyway. Nothing could take away the scratching nerves inside my gut, telling me that _something _was bound to happen. You had said it would.

I was just in utter shock that you would have anything to do with it.

The festival started a few hours later downtown, where a crowd gathered to watch live performances in the city square. There was a small fairground and street performances going on. Everything was full of vibrancy and luminosity. I could understand why people were willing to let loose here, despite a team of police dotting the area in case things got too rowdy.

I can remember watching in curiosity as an altercation began to take place with a group of drunkards and the law enforcement, with the police car lights flashing red and blue. The colours numbed my eyesight, and I couldn't see straight for a while. I shamefully admit that I had one too many to drink, but I was still physically stable and I could comprehend the scenario. It just took me longer to realise that you were getting arrested.

Rachel tried holding me back once I had gotten my head around the situation. 'Jo?' I yelled to you before running in the direction of the cop car, wholly insensible to any other sensory stimuli surrounding me. Not even Rachel's touch or Sofia's hollering at me to stay back could stop me.

'Jo! What happened? Jo, speak to me!'

'Ma'am, I'm going to need you to step back from the vehicle.' The police man warned me.

'What's going on?'

You stood there wordlessly with your gaze transfixing the sandy earth, and that was when I noticed the abrasions and marks along your arms and the bruises on your face, being irradiated by the flashing lights. I looked up to see another guy being sent to a police car adjacent to this one. Alexa had finally reached my grasp and pulled me back. 'Grace, stay here. Don't do anything stupid.'

'What happened, somebody just tell me.' I began crying riotously at this point.

'He got into a damn fight!" Rachel yelled, grasping me by my shoulders. 'He mouthed off at a cop. He's being arrested. There, it's simple. This kind of stuff happens every year, Grace.'

'Jo, speak to me.' I turned back to you.

'I'm sorry, Grace. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say.' You descended into the back of the car without any hesitation and I'm guessing you gave up the fight as soon as you saw me approach. You felt as if you had failed me, as well as Amy. I understand that now.

I was given a ride back to your cousins' house by your sister, who wore a stone cold expression along the way. The lantern show was getting closer along, but you were on your way to the station. You were going to miss the first public event to mark your sister's death.

I couldn't stop crying the whole ride back. The street lights soared past and Brooke's driving was so wild that I was certain we would crash. Brooke never uttered one word until we got home.

'We're still going to the lantern show. It's in fifteen minutes. Put on a thicker jacket, it'll get cold.' She ordered me, storming into the kitchen to pop open a Budweiser. You mother emerged from the living room.

'Where's Jo?' she stood alarmed at our swift advent and your obvious absence. 'Grace, are you crying?'

I tried wiping away my tears, saturated with mascara. 'It's OK, Isabelle. I'm fine.'

'Jo's still at the festival,' Brooke lied. 'We're meeting him at the lake in a bit.'

'Grace, why are you crying?' your mother probed me once more. I felt like I had to carry on Brooke's falsehood, as I knew she said what she said for a reason. 'No reason. I just sprained my ankle quite badly at the festival. It really hurts, but I'll be fine. I promise.'

Your mother shook her head. 'I know something's going on. If both of you would just have the decency to tell me.'

'We need to go, Mom.' Brooke seized my wrist, leading us back to the front door. I was extremely thankful that Isabelle said she would just stay in for the night and not accompany us to the show earlier on. The whole night was just disarray at this point.

The last fragment of the memorial began at seven o'clock, where a voluminous crowd gathered at the banks of Alvarado City Lake to set Sky Lanterns off into the sky. Brooke and I walked through the streets where many people carried their unlit lanterns in their hands. I was amazed at the amount of people that actually assembled for the commemoration.

We shared a lantern, lighting it up before setting it off in the midst of the other glowing lights in the sky. The beauty of the lanterns reflecting lights upon the lake and dotting the nightfall with burning spheres made that moment feel so infinite. I could feel the mourning that you had felt for so long.

'Just imagine,' Brooke piped up. 'Amy could be up there, watching these rise up to her. Maybe she is collecting them all.' she smiled delicately with moisture twinkling in her eyes.

I wondered if you could at least catch a glimpse of the lanterns from wherever you were.

Love Grace.

**FIFTEEN.**

**'You were not surprised to feel yourself ill adapted to the world, but it did surprise you that the world had produced a being who now lived in it as a foreigner. Do plants commit suicide? Do animals die of hopelessness? They either function or disappear. You were perhaps a weak link, an accidental evolutionary dead end, a temporary anomaly not destined to burgeon again.**

-Edouard Leve, _Suicide_

'I knew he would do something stupid like this!' Brooke hollered and the sound of her voice bored through the living room ceiling, up into the bedroom where I lay, pretending to be asleep. 'I knew it. He just can't help it, can he? Of all the days, it had to be tonight when he screwed up.'

'Brooke, don't yell.' Isabelle struggled to calm her down.

'No, I'm not going to stop yelling. I'm not. He's never thought about anybody else since Amy left us. He acts as if he is a sole human being. He can't go getting drunk and getting into fights when there are people out there that are counting on him. He can't. I thought he was over this. Jesus Christ.'

'You have to think about how hard this must be for him. Amy and Jo were extremely close. They held an unbreakable bond.' Your Aunt Vera's voice came into ambience.

'Don't give me that,' Brooke snapped. 'He's not hurting any more than we are.'

'I can't believe you would even begin to be this inconsiderate.' You father began to raise his voice.

'Oh, So _I'm _the inconsiderate one? Well I'm not the one who feels the need to brush the elephant in the room under the carpet. I'm angry because I know that one of these days, he will do it. He will kill himself. It will be out of his logical, conscious control but he will do it. I'm sorry, it may sound harsh, but it's true. There's nothing stopping him from trying again. Just think about that. The next time you pick him up, it'll either be from the hospital or the damn morgue. So don't blame me for being angry.'

'Brooke, please don't.'

'No, stop. Stop sugar-coating it. I bet you he's in that goddamn station just conjuring ideas of how he's gonna go. You need to realise this. He thinks his existence is a failure. The only thing really stopping him is that girl, Grace. She was a light at the end of a tunnel, but he'll walk straight back in. He will.'

'You cannot think things like that.'

'Yeah, OK. I'll just be completely oblivious and prance around like I don't have a dead sister and a suicidal brother and parents in deep denial. Tomorrow you're going to have to bail him out of jail and talk to him. Reach out to him. I'm scared, I really am.' It didn't take much to know that she was crying at this point.

'Please, Mom. Dad. Do something.'

'I'm not surprised he never told you.' Brooke and I sat out in the garden, overlooking the dry sandy foothills ahead. It was the next morning, and your parents had gone to pick you up a while earlier. 'I'm sorry you had to find out that way. I was hoping you knew.'

It's fine.' I murmured. But it wasn't. Of course not.

'He was hospitalised three times before Mom and Dad decided it was best to pack up and move somewhere else. Huntington had always been a place my parents wanted to live, anyway. But the first time was when he overdosed on sleeping pills for his insomnia, but not enough to die or anything. I've always thought that attempt was more of a cry for attention rather than to actually kill himself. He was discharged a couple of days later.' She looked out into the horizon as I tried to swallow the sharp truth I was being fed. I could feel my chest get cut up from the inside, and I didn't want to believe a word of it. 'Hospitalisation number two was alcohol poisoning after spending the evening alone with a cabinet full of liquor. Parents walked in on him unconscious and called emergency services. The last time was when I came home to find a suicide note on the living room table. I rushed up the stairs hoping for the worst. He was literally seconds away from kicking the chair under his legs. He spent the night in the psych ward. Got assigned to a therapist, given prescription pills, blah blah blah. It really hurts to say this all out loud, because nobody ever has. It's like reading out the plot of a film.'

'Oh, God.' I felt light-headed and nauseous, and the mountains rotated at a small degree.

'I'm so sorry, Grace.' She wrapped her arm around my shoulder. 'It's a heavy load to take on, I know.'

It's fine. It's OK. Brooke, can I ask you something?'

'Sure.'

'This is going to sound so stupid and trivial despite everything you have just said, but… why did he break up with Sofia?'

'Because she couldn't love somebody who was broken, when she still had pieces of herself to pick up. Amy was her best friend, remember. She couldn't mend two people. She just didn't understand. You see, Jo often has these phases where he withdraws himself from everybody. It doesn't matter how much he loves them. She took it to heart, I believe. Instead of taking his feelings into account or consideration, Sofia must have just let go of him completely. I know for a fact that they argued continuously towards the end. They broke it off a couple of weeks before he moved away.'

'Oh.'

'Please do a better job than Sofia did. He needs it. And I can tell he loves you. Just in the mere fact that he brought you here. He wants to be reminded of your presence, twenty-four seven. You're a reminder that there are still good things left in his life.'

'You think so?'

'Come on. It's obvious.' She smiled with a smile identical to yours.

**'I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.'**

-Franz Kafka, _The Metamorphosis _

You arrived forty minutes later and I watched from the peak of the stairs as you entered the front door. You looked straight up at me with brown eyes gleaming apologetically. Hanging up your jacket, you turned your gaze elsewhere and left for the living room. I shortly trailed after you, like smoke.

'Hey, Jo.' I called, leaning on the doorframe. You turned around, lifting your face from your palms. The small red capillaries in your eyes told me that you hadn't slept a wink all night. 'Hi.' The feeble grin you attempted was short lived. You pulled out a lighter from your jean pocket and began sparking a Marlboro right there and then.

'Do you wanna go out and talk?' I asked. Your parents had stayed in the kitchen and Brooke drove over to a friend's house earlier on, so it was just us in the room for the meantime.

'No. I'm tired. I want to sleep.'

'Let's go upstairs.'

You sighed, 'OK.'

After crushing the remaining cigarette on the bedroom floor and disposing of it in the bin, you rested yourself onto the bed where I lay as close to your skin as I could. My fingers felt along the scratches on your arm and the contusions on your chest.

'What did you fight about?'

'It doesn't matter anymore.'

'If not, then tell me.'

'I'd rather not.'

'You missed the lantern sh-'

'Yeah, I caught onto that.' you cut me off, turning your back to me. 'Thanks for telling me something so obvious. Does it make you feel better?'

It was only midday but it felt like the sun had already done a full round since I woke up. It was all too much to take in for just one morning. 'Grace, I really shouldn't have brought you here. It was a bad idea from the start. I shouldn't have bothered.'

'Don't say that. I quite enjoyed this trip.'

'You're lying. I know when you lie. This was a disaster, admit it.'

'It wasn't. You need to just try and forget everything. Every second passes and it's a new chance, as much as it doesn't feel like it. You may have said something stupid a minute ago or done something senseless last night, but last night isn't _now. _Don't think about the past if it disturbs the present. It's a domino effect.'

'Your words are wise, Grace. But you will never understand what it is like trying to convince myself all these positive things when someone inside me tells me something else. I mean if you covered your ears and talked whilst other people tried to talk to you, the first voice to get to you would be the voice inside your head. That's what it's like. This is a battle that I have to fight alone. You can be my ally, give me weapons and whatnot, but I'm the one who has to pull the sword out. I have to get rid of it all. And it's hard. It's hard.'

I turned your face towards mine and kissed you, but I knew it wouldn't be enough. It was something to soften the blow. 'I love you. It's cliché, but there's no other way to put it. I wish these words would help you and maybe one day they will. But it proves that you mean something to someone and you shouldn't ever forget that. I love you.'

We were supposed to have been on our way back to Huntington that day but we ended up hanging out in Rachel's father's old pickup truck at sundown, parked by the lake outside of town. The sky was tinted violet as the sun drank all the blue away, dragging it into the earth. Eight of us lay like sardines in the open back of the truck and talked about absolutely nothing. It reminded me of time spent at the National Park back home, having picnics in the meadows, not apprehension about inevitable troubles like debt, regret, or growing up.

I was suddenly whisked out of the truck and seized over your shoulder, as everybody decided to peel off their garments and plunge themselves into the lake. I can remember the feeling of astonishingly cold water crashing down on my skull, as we descended into deep obscurity. Your hands guided me and kept me up, and we both rose to the surface, breaking through the shimmering freshwater lagoon. I looked up and counted each emerging star in the cosmos beyond, wondering if life really had a purpose. Was our drive to collect memories, or dispose of them? Are we supposed to live in the moment, or keep our pasts alive?

I felt like it didn't matter anymore.

I was alive in a boundless instant, which I breathed in with pure content.

I was alive and you were alive, and moments like that just reminded me that life doesn't last forever.

And neither does happiness.

Love Grace.

**PART TWO.**

**'You cannot save people. You can only love them.'**

-Anaïs Nin

**SIXTEEN.**

_**'But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.'**_

- **Charles Darwin**, _In a letter dated October 1, 1861_

I cycled down to your house three days after the ceremony when we had returned home, because you failed to call me or talk to me in anyway. I was slightly scared for you because you were showing signs of falling back into that rough patch. I wanted to try and catch you before you could plummet right in, like you had done with Sofia.

I pedalled through the thoroughfares, sensing the August breeze stream past me as I rode at a high swiftness.

Your mother opened the door, instantly showing uneasiness.

'Oh, hello Grace.'

'Where's Jonah?' I asked.

'He's here. I don't think you should visit at the moment.'

'Why?'

'He's just been in a bad mood since the memorial event. He needs some time alone; he won't even speak to _us, _if you're worried that he's not talking to you.'

'Well I _am_ worried, and I want to see him.' I protested.

'He's upstairs.' She said softly, and it was still etched in her eyes that she didn't want me to hang around. I walked past her nevertheless, running hastily up the stairs.

'Jo?' I called. I turned into your bedroom to see you sprawled across the sheets, lost deep in a slumber. You looked just as peaceful as the time we slept in Alvarado. This time, however, there was a light expression of discomfort in your face, as if you were in the peak of a bad dream. Your eyelids fluttered slightly and you stirred before lying still again. My heart broke to see you look so small, so helpless. There was no way I could just turn around and leave you like this.

I decided to lie down beside you, fixing the blankets so we were both concealed under them. I felt your slow breath, warm on my face as I positioned myself in front of you.

That day, I finally came to accept, as much as I didn't want to, that you cannot forget things so easily and quickly. The thoughts can be slowed or subdued over time, but they never disappear, and never in an instant. You can lock them away, but there's nothing stopping them from finding the key and breaking into the forefront of your mind right when you don't expect it. just something as small as sky lanterns or your ex-girlfriend can make you remember again.

Your mind is never safe from the memories.

** "He'll pinch a cigarette between his fingers. He'll take a drag, blow that drag between his lips. He'll look at the girl with eyes the colour of the sky before it turns black and he will see heaven, and the pictures of all those other girls floating inside his head will blow away like the clouds of the cigarette and he'll see only the girl inside himself and the world will stop." **

-Maureen Medved, _The Tracy Fragments_

The rain that descended over Huntington Valley for over two seeks began to subside, leaving an unusually cold humidity in the air. The sun began to shine again, and trips outside were now more frequent.

You and I went out for a walk to the park in the town centre. The trees and grass still dripped in precipitation from the last rainclouds the night prior. I could hear the water gurgle as my boots sunk deep into the green ground with every step I took. You wore a fur-hooded parka jacket and burgundy Doc Martens on our outing. Yet again, there was a cigarette between your fingers.

You had been extremely quiet lately, only speaking to me when I started the conversations off. I knew you just needed some time alone, but it killed me to gain the absence of your reassuring company, whatever mood you were in.

'I'm going to Tammy Colson's house party tonight. You should be my plus-one.' You commanded rather than asked.

'I might have stuff going on.'

'You never have anything going on.'

'What makes you think that?'

'OK – what were your pastimes before you met me?' After the long pause, you stated, 'Exactly. So come with me. Let's go have some fun for a change.'

'Is it extremely and utterly necessary?'

You turned to me, looking concerned. 'I've been getting worse. You know, mood swings, freak-outs, stuff like that. Sometimes I feel like I should never ever leave the house and other times I feel like I'm catching cabin fever and I need to be in a different environment for a while. I invited you because you're like my Guardian Angel and you can sober me up if I drink a few too many.'

I accepted because I thought if it could help you forget about all the bad things, there mustn't have been much harm in doing so. I just wanted to be there for you in general, so what harm could a party possibly do?

The party was almost like a flashback of the first one I went to in the year. I felt completely out of place again, and you did what Eva always did – spending most of the time with other people. I didn't complain too much since you were happy. There was a smile on your face and that's all that I could wish for at that moment in time, especially since how you had been feeling after the memorial.

I soon began to realise, around two hours into the party, that you were starting to enjoy yourself a bit too much. You became loud and boisterous, and I would hear your laugh ring loud through the crowd of people. I knew that you were entertaining a few guys with your amazingly hilarious stories and just having general fun, but you had also had more drinks than I had intended on you to have. My inner Guardian Angel kicked in, and I went through the crowd to find you.

'Jo, how many drinks?'

'I don't know.' You said, only half concentrating to what I saying.

'Jonah. I think we need to go home.'

You turned around. 'I think _you _need to go home. You're such a lightweight; go drink a Capri-Sun or something.'

I heard the laughter of a couple of people around us. The humiliation I felt escalated to its peak.

'Jo, you're embarrassing me. We need to go.'

'OK, OK, whatever. I'll leave in a while. Give me half an hour.'

I started to get angry because you were not showing any consideration towards my feelings. I know it was the liquor talking, but it still hurt.

Fifty-seven minutes later and you began to decline drastically. You words ran almost incoherently and the glazed shine in your eyes told me you were somewhere else. Your balance and coordination was long gone.

We got into the car at midnight after I finally convinced your plastered mind to leave. You held onto my arm as I carried you into the shotgun of the car. Your legs tried their best to keep your body hoisted vertically, but your torso hung slack, threatening to plunge you into the wet soil.

I ushered you into your seat and you sat, staring blankly and silently for a few minutes before inclining your foggy head on my shoulder. I attempted to start the engine.

'I feel really sick.' You mumbled.

'That's what you get for drinking so much.'

'I'm sorry.' You said. 'I promise I'll never do it again.' It felt as if I was scolding an eight-year-old boy, prompting them to apologise.

'You know, this may have been what Amy was like.' You slurred. 'When she died. She probably didn't even know what was coming. That must have sucked. Just imagine, though. You're super dizzy and your head hurts… and you want to sleep but some maniac in the seat next to you is speeding down the road at… three hundred miles per hour. You see lights and then… it's all over. Just like that.'

You took long pauses between words, as if you were beginning to fall asleep. I never responded to your intoxicated, garbled sentences. I knew that you would forget everything you said the next morning.

'It's OK, Jo. I'll just drive you home and you can go to bed. Get a good night's sleep.'

'Don't start the engine yet,' you muttered before opening the car door beside you. 'I am going to throw up.'

I instantly emerged from my side of the car and ran around to your aid, where you keeled over on the curb and heaved, emptying your stomach of liquor and acid. I held your hair back and waited until you slowly got back up. 'I think I feel better.' You whispered, closing your eyes.

'You'll feel better when you get home and sleep. Come on.'

It sometimes amazed me how far you would go just to erase memories from your mind. It was ironic because it never even worked. You may have had your head in the clouds in the initial hours, but once the bubbliness of the drinks wore off, the thoughts haunted you again.

Love Grace.

**SEVENTEEN.**

** 'Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them.'**

-Marcus Aurelius

I heard pattered thuds of your knuckles meeting my front door once, at two in the morning. Seven past two, to be exact. Initially, I suspected a break-in from a strangely polite burglar who knew the common courtesy of knocking. However when I looked outside the window to see the dusky outline of your car parked on the side of the road, I knew it was you. Luckily enough, your arrival was loud yet subtle enough not to wake my mother. I threw on an old hoodie and made my way down the stairs, hoping in the back of my head that it really was you and not a deranged killer who had stolen your car to mask any suspicion.

'Jo, are you being serious?

'About what?' you sounded surprisingly alert, even at this time of hour. It was either there was a glitch in your circadian system or you had possessed extraordinary nocturnal behaviour. Deep down, I knew it was the insomnia. You hadn't touched your sleeping pills.

'I fell asleep a couple of hours ago, and I had this crazy dream.' You stood outside my front door with your hands in your jean pockets. 'We went stargazing at the Edge, but it was in the dead of night. Like, when nobody was on the streets. It's like we were the only people on earth.'

'That's so nice Jo, but have you seen the time?'

'We need to stargaze.'

'Jo-'

'I'm not kidding. I would not have driven to the outskirts of town to tell you this for nothing. We should go right now.'

'It's almost September. It's freezing cold. I can't do this Jonah. I'm tired. If it's too much of a hassle to go back home, you can stay here until the morning…'

You walked straight past me into the house and towards the coat rack, pulling out my white parka. 'It doesn't matter what you're wearing, there's no one out there. Just put this on and let's go.'

I hesitantly did as you said, throwing on my Phys Ed sneakers to compliment my pyjamas, and stepping out into the empty night with you. I made sure to leave quietly and I hoped my mother wasn't roused by the noise.

'We're not going in the car. Let's just… walk.' You said.

'Walk? Around the neighbourhood at this time? This isn't right.'

'It's not right because you have never done before. You feel uncomfortable doing unfamiliar things. You're always used to seeing these houses in broad daylight with people weaving in and out of them, with cars driving past. You're used to the noise. So this is why it's nice to step out to something new. It's like everything has been turned inside out. But it's refreshing, right?'

'Sort of. I'm still cold.'

'OK, so now you want me to sacrifice my ultimate warmth for yours?'

'I sacrificed my bedtime for you. It doesn't matter anyway, you can keep the jacket. I'm just cranky for the obvious reason that I'm being deprived of sleep.'

'Sometimes it's nice. We miss so much when we're sleeping. The world still moves along, you know. Things still _happen. _Sometimes much more beautiful things than what we see.'

'Why can't you have this mind-set all the time?' I held onto your hand as we walked through the darkness of the streets, watching silhouettes of identical houses move behind a full moon. The silver light spilled over the concrete and bricks, dripping through the leaves of trees and the tops of cars. The mountains stood solid far out, concealing the horizon and reminding me how far away from urban civilisation Huntington Valley really is.

'I'm so thankful for you, Grace.'

'I'm thankful for you too, Jo.' I laughed. Sometimes your words were just so spontaneous.

'No, I mean it. I don't say it enough, do I?'

'I can already tell. I mean, who wouldn't be thankful for me?'

'I don't know if God's too impressed. I think he may have expected a little more.'

'Like what, winning a Nobel Peace Prize?'

'Probably. But besides that, I think you're the best thing that's ever happened in my life since Amy. You're just something else. I'm glad I got your attention at that party, all those months ago.'

'This is so sweet, Jo. I don't really know what to say.'

'Let's not say anything. Let's just walk down to the Edge and watch the stars.'

'But I think the park ranger must have closed the entrance.'

'I know this is going to sound weird that I know this, but there's a small dip in the ground by one of the gates which you can just squeeze through. I think foxes probably use it.'

'No, seriously. How did you know that?'

'I observe a lot; it's an important trait for a budding photographer.' You grinned.

'I think you might observe too much.'

'Nah, only the important things. Things that I feel could help me out one day.'

'Like me?'

'Well I'd say you've _saved _me rather than helped me out.'

Love Grace.

**EIGHTEEN.**

**'There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.'**

'Neil Gaiman, _Fragile Things_

'I can't believe this.' Eva sobbed. 'He told me it didn't matter what they thought! He told me it was OK. How could he do this?'

Dylan had called it all off. It seemed completely out of the blue, the way Eva put it. 'I don't understand, Grace.'

'Just relax. I'm so sorry. It may not feel like it, but I don't think he was worth any of your time.'

'He was. I don't regret anything. I just don't know why he decided it was over. Has he met anybody else? Tell me if it's true.'

'No, Eva.'

'He said he didn't care if my parents thought badly of him. He could deal with it. Why would he do this to me?'

'What did he say to you to break it off?'

'He told me all that cliché rubbish that's drip-fed through every girl. You know 'I still love you,' and 'we can always hang out.' I can't believe I let myself fall for him. I can't say I wish I didn't... I just wish he didn't drop this bomb on me. I didn't know getting your heart broken would heart so much that the pain would feel physical. It's like my chest has tightened and my head hurts, and my stomach has turned inside-out.'

'You'll be fine, don't worry. The pain will subside.'

'But it's the kind of pain that feels like it will last forever when it hits. Even if I were to feel better tomorrow, I am not so convinced about it today.'

'Oh, come here.' I brought her closer to me and let nestle into my shoulder.

I could never stop feeling like I was just made to comfort others and take the weight of their pain.

You were told that you would need to begin the series of prescriptions to stop yourself going downhill again. You refused profoundly to the thought of going back.

'I've been doing fine.' You told me over the phone when I called you.

'Not recently.'

'I'll be OK. I just need some rest.'

'Jonah, I don't want to sound like a nagging mother but it's all for the best. You know that you need to take them. I don't know what you're playing at.'

'I'm not playing at anything. I just need some time of peace and tranquillity. Maybe I should take up yoga and meditation or something stupid like that.'

'Will yoga and medicated reduce your nightmares and insomnia?'

'I'll never know unless I try.'

'Look, we all know that you're not going to meditate. Your only form of meditation is chain smoking all day, and that's just deadly. Just try and take the prescriptions. For me.'

'Maybe. Maybe not.' You said.

'Do it for Amy.'

'Amy's dead.'

'You're being difficult, Jo.'

'I am not. I was just making a fairly blatant statement.'

'You're going to have to cooperate. Otherwise this constant convincing we all have to hammer into you is not going to work.'

'Look, I might decide to take them. It's just that they make me groggy and dazed and weird afterwards. Sometimes I hear things that aren't there or my sense of perception is gone. I feel so much more lost and I don't understand my own frame of mind. They make me go crazier. So yeah, I _might_ take them. Then again, I may possibly not.'

When you hung up, I already knew that the answer to my request was the latter. You weren't going to take them.

A week later, and you still hadn't kicked the drinking habit. It was beginning to get more dangerous, as you began to drink at home, unassisted. I noticed that the longer you held off taking your tablets, the more addicted you became to more potent and deadly things.

Our first ever shouting match started over a bottle of Budweiser.

'Hand it over right now, Jo.'

'One last sip.' You drank continuously from the bottle to irritate me, and boy did it work. I was infuriated. You weren't even upset; you were having fun watching me scorch with vehemence.

'You heard me.'

'I'm sorry, what was that?'

'Give me the bottle.'

'Ask politely.'

'Jonah! What the hell is wrong with you? Why can't you just stop acting like an idiot for one moment of your life? You are really getting on my nerves. I bend myself over backwards for you, making sure you don't harm yourself and you basically just launch it all back in my face. Is that how this relationship works? With only side making an effort? The side that doesn't need the effort as much as the other does?' I yelled.

'Yes, I am an idiot, deal with it.' you hollered back. It didn't help that you were already slipping into intoxication at this point. 'I'm a crazy, loony guy who belongs in a mental asylum. I have to survive on medication to become a normal part of society. There is a part of me that will never be fixed again and you don't see it. You don't know what I'm going through, so don't try and guess. Oh, and thanks for your help.' You took another swig. My blood was boiling.

'I can't believe you would do this to me!' I screamed. 'You ruined my life. I can't go to bed without thinking about you. I can't eat or breathe without _you _in my head. I have tried so hard, Jonah.'

'You haven't tried hard enough.' You whispered, dropping the now empty bottle on the sofa next to you.

'I'm leaving.' I said in pained tone before slamming your front room door violently. I heard you yell 'Goodbye,' on my way out. This was the first time that I had thoughts on just letting go and giving up on you for good. You didn't want my help at all. In fact, you wanted nobody's help. You were beginning to seem to me as a selfish entity who relied on things that wouldn't help in you in the long run.

I left you for a while, hoping my boiling blood would subside and my battered heart would heal eventually.

Love Grace.

**NINTEEN. **

**'Your memory is a monster; you forget—it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you—and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you.'**

-John Irving, _A Prayer For Owen Meany_

I ultimately came round to my senses and stopped being mad at you. I couldn't stay away from you for too long; there was still that part of me that loved you like I loved you from the beginning.

Your rough patch included days of never wanting to leave the house. You would sometimes spend hours until the afternoon entombed under your blankets. For a while, I began to come around to your house after school to accompany you and make sure you didn't do anything stupid when your parents were out at a conference. Occasionally I would have flashbacks about the time when Brooke told me what had happened when she returned to see you, and that fear burnt in the pit of my stomach every time I opened the front door to your house. It was always extinguished once I saw you just casually watching TV or sleeping; mostly the latter. I would come in and make tea and toast for the both of us, and we would just sit together and eat. You wouldn't be upset or detached after a while. It would be as if the demons that harassed you for the majority of the time were chased away somehow.

There was one particular incident in which the demons enjoyed far too much, however.

I came to your house after school as per usual, this time buying snacks on the way there in case we decided on watching a movie.

I walked in to hear you frantically slamming drawer doors.

'Jonah?'

You stood at the top of the stairs with a look of stress and desperation plastered on your face. 'I can't find my Lights, Grace. I've looked everywhere and I can't find them.'

'Is that why you're tearing the house inside out?'

I'm going cold turkey. The pain is unbearable; I need some, right now.'

I came up into your bedroom with you, where you had literally turned everything upside down, just to look for a packet of cigarettes. Everything had been removed from your drawers and scattered along the floor – clothes, books, ornaments etc… I knew this was a bad day for you.

'Have you been taking your medicine?' I asked.

'I'm fine without those freaking pills.' You snapped. 'I'm not dependant on them.'

'You've been told to take them as regularly as possible, to stop you feeling like this, for example.'

'Ugh, whatever Grace. Why don't you just shut up for a second and help me find my Lights. I thought they were in my jean pocket, I was so sure. I _had _them.'

'Why don't you buy new ones?'

'My parents don't give me money when I stay at home because they know I'll go out and buy some. They confiscated three packets off of me the other day.'

'You know it's all for the best.'

You ignored me, continuing to rummage through any enclosed spaces in your room. It was pretty obvious that they wouldn't have snuck to the back of your wardrobe but you looked anyway. It was like watching a heroin addict snap after weeks without a shot.

'You should drink some tea or something. I brought some snacks with me. We can watch a movie.' I pleaded.

'No, Grace. I don't want to watch a movie. I want to stand on the front lawn with a roll-up. That's all I want. There are so many things in this world that I don't ever get the chance to experience often, like being happy. And the one small thing that I need is suddenly so impossible to make happen. What is wrong with me? I can't do anything right, I can't.'

'Jonah, it's OK. You're overreacting.'

'I'm pretty sure you told me the other day how much of an idiot I am and how I've ruined your life. I can remember what you said, word for word. Everything was true. I'm a pathetic excuse for a person. I really am. I'm sorry.'

You began to break down like you did after Tammy Colson's party. This was the first time that I had seen you really lose yourself in a sober state. The walls that you spent so much time holding up began to crumble around you. I watched as you stood shaking with tear-glazed eyes. This was all because you decided against your medication.

'Jo, why don't you just take some Maprotiline and come downstairs? I'll boil the kettle.'

This is when you snapped.

'You want me to take the pills, huh? OK, I might just do that.'

And you stood up, storming to the cabinet in the bathroom. I followed you and yelled in horror as you grabbed the container because I knew what you were going to do. You attempted to pour water into a cup, but I ran behind you and tried grasping the container out of your hands.

'Jonah, don't do it, please.' I screamed as you opened the lid and the small capsules flung out towards every direction. The majority fell into your mouth.

I grabbed your arms, wrestling you hard enough for us to both end up plunging into the glossy tiled ground. The sound of our figures hit the ground created an aching thud. You threw me off body before hoisting yourself up by the side of the bath.

I enfolded my arm around your left leg, bellowing as deafeningly as I possibly could. Not only couldn't I breathe, but I could feel my voice getting hoarser by the second.

There was what seemed like thousands of pill capsules rolling around on the floor after the frantic movement that had occurred in the last thirty seconds. Instead of trying to swallow the next packet of pills you found, you proceeded to toss them onto the floor with a strong force so the lid would burst open and more pills would cascade into the air. You stood still for a while, holding onto the sink for balance. I stayed seated below you, sobbing silently.

'I'm so tired, Grace. I'm fed up with everything.' Your voice wavered. I didn't have to look up to know that you were crying.

'I don't want to feel… like I need something medical to keep me sane. It makes me feel like a psychopath. I don't feel human sometimes. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.'

I looked down at my arms, which had already started to bruise from hitting the bathroom wall when I went down. I could feel the sting of a scratch on my right cheek. I looked up and noticed the nail marks I indented into your arms when I tried to hold you back. This was the first time we had ever physically fought. Quite frankly, you almost killed yourself because of me. I wouldn't stop going on about the pills, all because I wanted you to get better, not worse.

'It doesn't matter.' I muttered, getting up. 'Let's just clean this all up and make some tea.'

I stayed over your house that night, despite having school the next day. I texted my mother majority of the scenario, cutting out the physical brawl, and she let me stay.

We came to your bedroom at around nine in the evening, when the moon was glowing full in the autumn sky. You took out an antique vinyl player that you had kept hidden in your closet for many summers, and stuck in Billie Holiday's rendition of _I'll Be Seeing You._

As soon as the vintage piano introduction began, you took hold of my hands and we slow-danced in the dim light of your chamber. Our chests acted as barriers for our pounding hearts and I could feel yours, pumping warmth throughout your body. We moved slowly in unison, clasping our fingers together and basking in the beautiful sound of the vinyl recorder singing.

_I'll be seeing you  
In all the old familiar places  
That this heart of mine embraces  
All day through._

In that small cafe;  
The park across the way;  
The children's carousel;  
The chestnut trees;  
The wishing well.

I'll be seeing you  
In every lovely summer's day;  
In everything that's light and gay.  
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you  
In the morning sun  
And when the night is new.  
I'll be looking at the moon,  
But I'll be seeing you.

I'll be seeing you  
In every lovely summer's day;  
In everything that's light and gay.  
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you  
In the morning sun  
And when the night is new.  
I'll be looking at the moon,  
But I'll be seeing you.

When the song ended, you unravelled your fingers from mine before placing the softest of kisses on my lips. I moved my fingers through each strand of your hair, feeling each lock slide through my hands. You had never looked or felt so beautiful to me.

After being advised to see a therapist again, you strongly refused to it. You didn't feel as if you needed one anymore; you were cured of external help. Your sole reason was that it wouldn't help any more than it did before. And you promised to take the medication moderately and regularly.

'My last therapist was a thirty-three-year-old married woman called Susanne. She was really tall and wore thick framed glasses. She always had her hair up in a bun like she was a Russian ballet dancer or something.' you told me one morning in your kitchen. The smell of potentially burning toast wafted through the air.

'She had been divorced three times before and wrote a mediocre novel on marriages that probably sold about as much as the entire population of Alvarado. She also had a ten-year-old kid called Jamie who would sometimes come into the session midway. I would have conversations with him about the many PlayStation games he collected, which was pretty cool.

She also had this abstract Salvador Dali art hanging behind her desk that I used to spend time staring at. I don't know; maybe there was a psychological story behind it but I happened to find it quite therapeutic.

'Anyway, I was assigned to her about two months after the accident. So I got to my first appointment, and I wasn't interested at all. It was just that my parents had paid tonnes of money to get me in there so I thought I'd do them a favour. The first thing she did was greet me and then ask me how I was doing. I replied, 'fine', and she said something like 'well that's nice to hear.' At the time I was thinking how many other people she told that on a daily basis. I was annoyed because she was just designed to ask these things and pretend to care. As long as money found its way into her pocket, she was OK.'

You went to collect your semi-burnt bread once it jumped out of the toaster as I spun around on the stood that I first had done at your party in February. You continued, 'She said something after that which I remember so clearly. It was alone the lines of,

'I know your mother sent you here to help you deal with the loss of someone you loved dearly. I understand that it must be hard for you. I spent day after day consoling empty hearts and I try my best. I'm not promising elation and peace, but I'm promising to fill that void with normality. I can promise to help you if you put aside all the social stigmas associated with therapists and counsellors and the thought that they lack real sensitivity and empathy towards their clients. I just hope you understand why you should just open up and let me in so I can help you out'.

From that point on, I liked her. She helped me a lot before I left. She was the person that first prescribed all those pills to me. Sometimes we would spend an entire session joking around because she knew that was what I needed. Sometimes she would assess me and make me answer weird questions. I started to understand that it was all part of the process. So now when I'm advised to see a therapist, I don't like the idea of it. I already had the second best one last year.'

'Who's your first?' I asked.

'Who do you think?' you smiled.

'Wow, I'm a therapist now. This is pretty cool.'

'You know, you don't need a degree in psychology to stop someone going crazy. You just need to keep them company.'

My heart warmed to your acknowledgement to how much I have been trying to help you. I knew you realised; I just wanted to hear you say it.

I never thought I could really make a difference to somebody's life in any way, shape or form. I thought I was just another being, connecting and interlocking with other people in the universe. To think that I may have left a positive mark on anyone was quite surprising and also a really nice thought.

Love Grace.

**TWENTY.**

"**If you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.**"

-C.S Lewis, _The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe_

I felt like this was the year that my life was supposed to fall apart. Nothing went right, both at home or at school. My constant tending to your needs dropped my grades down by one level. I could never concentrate on things like the area of a triangle when I had you to worry about.

The next turning point in my already shattered world came back to my father.

I obviously knew that he had long gone. My thoughts were that he was travelling the world, living the life he had always wanted.

'Why are you going, daddy?' I had asked eight years ago, propped up by my pillows in the evening as my father sat at the foot of the bed.

'I'm going to visit all the countries in the world.' He had responded.

'Can I come?'

'No, Honey. You still have school. Maybe one day when you're a big girl, you can hop onto a plane and meet up with me somewhere. But that's a long way away.'

'Will you come back?'

'…Maybe,' he said. 'It all depends. I need to see where the future takes me. Then I can decide from there on. But I'll always come and visit you somehow, OK? Just imagine that Daddy's going on a big long holiday.'

'You have to send postcards,' I said.

He laughed. 'I do, don't I? I definitely will.'

'Send Mommy flowers.'

'I will.'

'And me.'

He chuckled again, 'I will.'

'I love you Daddy.'

'I love you too, Olivia.'

My father was the only person that called me by my first name at all times. My mother only would if I was in serious trouble, to really get my attention. Since then, I've even sometimes forgotten that I have a different first name.

I don't really know what I have been expecting from my father since. Sometimes I would imagine him appearing at our house in a Land Rover vehicle, built for safari trips. He would have millions of souvenirs and memorabilia that he picked up from all the seven continents and party poppers would go off as he arrived. We would greet after so long of not seeing each other, and I would have to get used to his new look; a long, rough beard and tanned skin after he spent weeks camping in the Australian Outback.

One night, my mother sat down with me and told me a story that I found hard to absorb.

'Your father and I divorced about a couple of months after he left. I signed all the forms and shipped them over. We were officially separated, and not just by land and sea.'

'What? How?' I sighed in disbelief and pain.

'Do you remember those letters that he used to send me?'

'Yeah…?'

'He was updating me on his life. I would have done the same, but nothing much had changed. I still lived the same life; he didn't. In fact, he moved on quite drastically. Two years after he left, he went to Germany and settled there after finding somebody. He had only been to seven countries by then. They've been married for the past four years,' she told me, 'and you also have a half-sister.'

I sat there in stunned silence. 'You've got to be kidding me,' I finally said, frowning. 'You waited until my boyfriend was in the midst of a breakdown to drop this bomb on me? Hey, you know what? It might have been less heavy if you told me whilst I passed the salt over the dinner table on Christmas day.' I snapped.

I did cry that night. No, I wasn't really expecting to. I thought I had gotten over my father. I think it just hurt more that he had gotten over _me. _I was expecting him to feel guilty for leaving his 'only daughter' and make plans to return one day – maybe a surprise visit on prom night or something stupid like that. it all came to me then. He didn't care. He didn't find it hard to forget about us at all. Here my mother is, drinking excess amounts of wine because somewhere in her heart, she still hurts and she cannot let go. Here is Jonah, acting up because somewhere in his heart, he still hurts and he cannot let go. Here I am, screaming blue murder at my bedroom walls because somewhere in my heart, I still hurt even though I thought I had let go.

Everything was going completely and utterly wrong. As dramatic as it may seem, my atmosphere was basically falling apart, suffocating me of happiness. I didn't want to buckle under the pressure, but the thoughts just built up inside my head until I was sure that my skull would collapse in on itself and dark feelings would bleed through the cracks of my cranium.

Yet, nobody had died in my life yet.

I went into a state of solitariness, trying to rid myself of the company of others to try and wring out the cloud of pain that fogged my soul. Humans would just confuse the process of eliminating the demons that had turned my brain into a living ground.

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-ONE.**

**'That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.'**

-John Green, _The Fault In Our Stars_

Another unusual dream occurred; the first one since the dream I had about your sister. Amy was in it once again - this time with you. _Pawn Shop Blues _played, but everything else was completely silent. Amy was screaming and yelling at you, and all you could see were her lips moving. You were both standing outside their capsized car, completely unharmed after supposedly climbing out. It was only after a while did I begin to realise that you were both just ghosts.

Soon the sound of Lana Del Rey was replaced with the Melody of _I'll Be Seeing You _by Billie Holiday. Amy bawled and beat against your chest and you yelled back in defence. I tried running towards you from where I was standing. Somehow, the ground had a treadmill effect. I ran as fast as I could, panting hard as my feet hit the ground. I never even moved an inch, however. I was stuck in the same time frame, watching your sister argue with you as if you had even survived.

I woke up with a start when in the dream, when they both turned to face me simultaneously and their eyes were just pairs of silver shining beams.

There was no way that I could get back to sleep after that point. I stayed up, becoming the insomniac that you were. It was a full moon outside, and I stood, looking straight into it.

At that point, I wished I was the moon, because the only responsibility I'd have would be to illuminate the skies into a pale darkness and reassure hearts with a soft, hypnotising light.

I stayed up, hoping you were awake with me.

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-TWO.**

**'If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.'**

-Lao Tzu

I decided to go through all of the things that involved my father; pictures, collectables, gifts, ornaments, letters and some stuffed animals and proceeded to throw them away. I wanted to forget about him like he had forgotten about us. The only way to do that was to burn any evidence of him ever existing in my life.

I plan was to make a fire in my backyard and burn everything until they formed ashes. I would take them to the local dumpster and diminish any traces of them. That was my ultimate goal.

Every time you had ever taken me to the park would be a more than just a distant memory. It wouldn't have happened. Every time you took me out to the National Park or propped me on top of your shoulders on the 4th of July wouldn't have happened.

I felt the heat of the fire once it had started, lighting up in the garden.

'What are you doing?' My mother approached me from inside the house.

'I'm just getting rid of a few things.' I hoisted up the heavy cardboard box that carried everything I was about to forget about.

'What are they?'

'Nothing important.'

'Seriously, Grace. Don't throw anything away without letting me know what it is.'

'Just things that belong to Dad. I've already made the fire; I have to burn them now. I can't just leave the fire and contribute to global warming for no reason,' I mocked my mother's ecologic mind-set.

'You don't have to do this.'

'I sort of do, you know. I'm not just going to sit around and act as if everything should just stay the same like you've always done. Things change. Lives change. People's minds change. We all need to move on. I'm starting today.'

Even though psychologically I could never really forget about my father, it was always good to start somewhere. It was different because I _wanted_ to.

You on the other hand, didn't want to forget about Amy. You just had to learn to adjust your memories so you only ever thought of the good things. There was no use in me remembering anything. That was the price I had to pay for being forgotten by someone who I thought never would.

My mother drove me to the local scrapyard to dispose of the rubbish I engulfed in infernos that didn't care what they harmed.

'I don't know how you have the strength to do something like this,' she told me before I got out of the car.

'It's not really having the strength,' I replied, 'It's having the sense.'

I was wondering if my mother would ever get rid of the wedding ring that she still kept somewhere in her room. I wondered if she too would demolish her wedding photos under hungry, flickering flames. I wondered if she would throw away the letters that he spent a year writing to her, because they meant nothing now. There will become a point when everything we've ever done will mean nothing, for we'd created a new future, erasing the chain that linked us to the past. I hoped, for her good, that my mother could go out into the world and find someone that she truly loved; someone that she knew would stay with her. Someone that loved me unconditionally. She needed to let go.

I guess time would tell.

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-THREE.**

**"In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves."**

-Laurie Halse Anderson, _Wintergirls_

Halloween was almost three weeks ago now. Dylan was hosting the biggest bash of the year, and everyone was told to come in costume.

'Costumes are for idiots.'

'No they're not. They're cool.' I laughed. You and I were ornamenting my house with run-of-the-mill Halloween streamers, paper chains, stickers, and fake pumpkins. We didn't have the preparation nor did we contain the effort to carve out real ones. Plus, the smell has always gotten to me.

'I'm just going in all casual.'

'Come on. At least wear a mask?' I fished around through a bag of masks that we had bought from the grocery store. They included a vampire, Frankenstein, a zombie, devil horns, and other assortments of supposed Halloween icons.

'I'll wear the devil horns. I think they match my personality.' You raised an eyebrow.

'Oh my God, there's an Angel halo in here! I'll wear that.' I pulled it out of the bag, placing the heavily tinselled headband on my head.

'There, that'll do. That's all the costume I really need.' You took a step outside to spark up, still wearing the horns sitting lopsidedly. It was kind of cute, in a way.

'How big do you think this party will be?' I asked.

'Well,' you clicked your lighter. 'It's basically the last party of the year, if you don't count New Years. I guess that is the last _and _the first. So, considering snow is forecasted to be on its way soon, I guess everyone is cramming in the fun beforehand.'

'We first met at Dylan's party, didn't we?'

'Sure did. I had gone outside for a smoke because it was way too hot and boring in there, and suddenly I caught sight of this girl, hanging around like a lost sheep. I asked her out to a local diner, because it's the most polite thing to do, right?'

I smiled. 'Or, maybe a little creepy. You know, a part of me thought I could be heading to my own murder. You could have been one of those sinister guys that lure chicks in and send their bodies to the woods.'

'Did I really look like a murderer to you?'

'No. I guess that's why I said yes eventually, but I don't really know if murderers are supposed to give themselves away through their physical appearance. You know a writer called Tucker Max once said the devil doesn't really come in red horns and a cape, but as everything you have ever wished for.'

'So… I'm everything you've ever wished for?'

'….Which could be a bad thing, according to Tucker Max.'

'So what does an Angel come as?'

'A dude with huge white wings and a long white dress, and a parcel from God.'

'OK. So I'm definitely not an Angel then.' You smiled, taking a drag.

'You believed in God then, right?' you knew I was referring to back when Amy was alive.

'Of course. Back when I was much younger. There was no reason not to. We just thought he was some huge guy in the sky.' You laughed. 'Then we learned that he was an 'omnipresent, omnibenevolent entity'. He was like a spirit everywhere. I used to think that I could get away with doing something wrong indoors because he wouldn't get a good view of me from outside.'

'That's some real logic right there, Jonah.' I laughed.

'Well I've got nothing to be afraid of now. Nobody's watching me expect for Amy. She probably thinks I've turned into an idiot.'

'Of course not, Jo.'

'Pfft. I could totally imagine her rolling her eyes at every stupid decision I make.'

'Well I bet she smiles when you're happy.'

'She doesn't smile much then.'

'Jo…'

'You heard my dad when he told everyone at the memorial what she wanted to be. A journalist. She wanted to travel the world and find out interesting news to report. If she could, she would work for Fox News or something like that. My parents were so proud of her. When I told them I wanted to be a photographer, you could tell they wanted something more than that. Following in their footsteps just wouldn't cut it. They wanted me to expand on my future like Amy. They were disappointed.' You took a never-ending drag of your Marlboro. 'What they didn't understand was that my dream was not their dream. I had my own horizons; my own paths to choose. It didn't matter, though. Amy won them over better than I did. She's probably laughing at me because I haven't touched a camera in months, like properly. I'm not even trying to achieve my dream.'

'It takes time to achieve your dreams. Especially when you're still grieving. Some people sit on their butts for years before they actually start to do something with their lives again.' I responded.

'Ah, Grace. My true motivator.' You smiled at me before allowing me to nuzzle my head into your collarbone. You stole my can of Coke afterwards.

'Hey, you'll never guess what.' I said.

'What?'

'I found out that my father moved to Germany and started a new family.'

'You're lying. That sounds like the perfect plot twist to a soap-opera.'

'I swear. My mother told me, after knowing for _four years_.'

'Well that's unlucky. What are you gonna do about it? Do you think you'll ever talk to him again?'

'No, I snorted. 'I have already thrown everything of mine that he gave me or participated in into a fire.'

'A fire, huh?'

'I sent it to a junkyard.'

'I like your way of thinking.'

'You know, I think it's pretty bad being left by the ones you love when they _chose_ to leave you. Maybe because you knew Amy didn't do it on purpose, it makes it easier?'

'Not really, because then you'll know that she didn't want to go. But she did. You'd feel the pain she would have felt for leaving, if it was possible for her to feel afterwards. You almost carry her regret in a different form, if that makes any sense.'

'So how do you feel about everything now?' I asked in a hushed tone a while afterwards.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean about Amy. Is your rough patch over?'

'Yeah, I suppose. I don't feel bumpy anymore. I've reached the state of acceptance. I've sort of let go.'

'That's beautiful to hear.'

'You know what I've learnt, Grace Silverman?'

'What have you learnt, Jonah Christopher? I replied, mocking your tone by the slightest.

'I've learnt that you will grieve your entire life. It's like a chronic disease. You won't wake up and feel like you're cured, ever. Yeah, sometimes you'll feel so much better about everything. Overall, if it really meant something to you, there will always be a pain attached to it. No matter what. So no, I'll never get over it. I'm just tired of it being in the front of my mind all the time. It's so much harder to forget the people that you really cared about.'

'Forgetting is an art.' I whispered.

'An art?'

'Yeah. Not in the creative way, like painting or drawing. I mean in the way that it is an intricate skill. Few people have powered it. For your brain, memorising is a necessity. But forgetting is an art.'

'That is the biggest revelation of my life.' You uttered. 'Thank you.'

You went back home mid-afternoon to get ready, whilst Eva came over with a tonne of makeup supplies and a selection of costumes to trial as we gussied up.

'I'm going for the sleek vampire look,' Eva said. She had seemed much happier since things had ended with Dylan, which was almost a month ago. It turned out he confessed to you that he regretted ever leaving Eva, but couldn't find a way to patch things up because he felt as if he had already done too much damage. He still cared about her and he was afraid of hurting her in any way possible so he made the decision to steer clear. Of course, I couldn't tell Eva any of this. I knew it would complicate things too far.

'Jo and I are going to turn heads - I mean, casual clothes at a Halloween costume is the most daring outfit of them all. Nobody would have thought of that.' I smiled.

'Only lazy people. Gosh, I'm so disappointed in you, Grace Silverman. I actually thought you'd try to push the boat out this year. I mean, _I_ tried.' She held up a gothic-inspired poly-knit dress with bell sleeves, a high attached collar, and lace and filigree print details. 'If I don't win the costume contest tonight, then we know that this world really isn't a fair place.'

'No, it definitely isn't a fair place if _I _win.'

I helped Eva apply her gothic makeup, followed by heading down to make a cup of tea before I got ready. My mother sat in the living room, reading another book focusing on a humanitarian crisis of some sort. She stressed to me that I shouldn't drink too much at this party because even she knew it would be chaos.

'I won't,' I sighed.

'It's my job to warn you anyhow. I wouldn't be a good mother if I just sat here and didn't say anything. Don't do or say anything stupid, OK? Have fun. But not too much.'

'I'm going to get so trashed tonight.' Eva said as we stepped outside. The breeze was sub-zero, stinging the end of my nose and my ears. I felt as if we had been plunged into the depths of December but the orange glow of jack lanterns and crowds of minors accommodating neighbour's front doors for treats told me otherwise. I had decided to try sticking to my theme and found long a plain white slim-fitted dress hidden somewhere in the back of my wardrobe. I never wear it in fear of obtaining stains too easily.

'My mom told me to drink responsibly, so I'm going to have to lay down on the alcohol.'

'Are you kidding me? You are _always _the responsible one. When are you going to be the reckless kid for once? I mean, I know your costume says otherwise but it's Halloween!'

'Yeah, I guess.' I replied, opening the door to her car. 'Isn't it supposed to be the night when all the dead come back to life or something?'

'Well, the barrier between the living and the dead is broken, so I suppose.'

In the back of my head, I was wondering if maybe Amy would be around somewhere.

We reached Dylan's house at around eight o'clock, which seemed to be a little late as there were already a tonne of people inside. I could see all the costumes people wore and it seemed to me to be more of a battle of who could sport the most seductive rather than scary get-up. Most girls stood in close-fitting dresses that ended just before their thighs began. It was something that I had gotten used to, becoming a part of the social scene. I knew that girls would go out of their way to impress guys and rival other girls, even at themed costume parties. That's just how it was.

I met you at the front door as you chatted to some other guys. Daringly, I planted you a kiss in front of others, to let them know that you were mine. I hoped I was always yours, but the rest of the night showed me otherwise.

We didn't do much for the first half of the night. We spent it cooped up in the living room which was already thriving with too many bodies and loud music. I did notice how you would subtly drank bottle after bottle however, and I knew it was about time until the Douchebag Jonah Persona peeped through.

It started when you disappeared, off to mingle with other acquaintances that you otherwise wouldn't bat an eye in front of, if you weren't an extreme socialist when you were drunk. I knew I shouldn't be too annoyed, after all it was a party and the whole point in parties was to talk to other people, right? I just put it in my mind that I should try not to be the clingy girlfriend that most people despised. You were your own person, but one I've come to learn, that was never wise with his decisions.

The next phase was the cocky storyteller phase, where people gathered to hear your far-fetched anecdotes, sprinkled with thick humour and the odd white lie. I tried to have fun and laugh along, but sharing your presence with other people always caught me off-guard. I was always my most comfortable when there weren't other people with us. I couldn't keep relaxed, especially because I had only allowed myself three small glasses of alcopop.

I had noticed Eva and Dylan talking quietly in the corner of the room, but God knew what about. It seemed more of casual small talk than intimate, but I could almost see a desperate plea in Eva's eyes. It was as if she was trying to say something that she couldn't. I could also tell that she was getting pretty close to being out of it. The way she cackled hysterically at everything he said, or how she couldn't keep her head stable indicated to me that she was a couple more drinks away from being a little too intoxicated. Dylan had a look of impatience plastered in his expression. And something else that I couldn't quite figure out. I wasn't so sure if they were on great terms yet.

Cherry Lawson approached me a while afterwards. 'We're gonna take a drive around the National Park later on. D'you wanna come?' She sipped on a cocktail casually, twisting a finger through her sharp red hair. She decided to sport the Schoolgirl Zombie look, wearing a ripped shirt and a tattered pleated skirt.

'The National Park? Why?'

'Because it's Halloween! There's no better place to go than a forest in the middle of the night.'

'I don't know. Who else is going?'

Well,' she said, scouring the room. 'Eva said she'll come. Amanda's coming, so is Frank and Jeremy. Remember them from the field party way back? Oh, and Jo _might_ come.'

'That's already six people. We can't all fit in the car. If I come, it will be way too full.'

'Ugh, come on. We'll make space! Jeremy should be driving, if he doesn't let the drink get to him. You can sit on Jo's lap, Amanda sits with Frank. I'll sit on Eva's.' she laughed.

'I think I'll pass.'

'Please, Grace! We're going ghost hunting and we need as many people to come as possible. It is going to be so sick.'

I thought long and hard about the offer, but I had a sudden urge to go home. I didn't know where it came from, but uneasiness was bubbling up in my gut somewhere. It was like I was trying to escape a catastrophe. I'm sure someone must have had a certain feeling in the pit of their stomach when they stepped on the Titanic, right?

'Jo, can we go home?' I asked you once you had gotten away from the crowd of people.

'Later, Grace.'

'I've got a headache. I'm so tired. Can it be soon?'

'Jesus Christ, Grace. Stop. Stop being that _one _kid who can't have fun. Just enjoy yourself! This is supposed to last all night.'

'I'm not staying here all night.'

'Well you can leave. I really don't care. You get on my nerves sometimes, dude.'

'Jonah, you know how uncomfortable I am with these kinds of things.'

'Then why did you go! Nobody forced you.'

'I was doing it for you! That's all I ever do anything for!'

'Yeah, well you can lay off the whole Mother Teresa thing. Get out of my hair for a second.'

I was well aware that we had gained spectators, watching our small dispute in the centre of the room. Luckily enough, the music was loud enough to blare out too much detail of our argument.

'Do you hear yourself? You know, you can be so inconsiderate sometimes.'

'And you think you're so righteous! You're not. You have no control over me, you are no better than anyone else. And if you think you can just come along and try and replace Amy or something, you're so damn wrong. You never will.'

'What honestly made you think that was my _sole _purpose of wasting all these months on you? I didn't even know who the hell she was when I met you!'

'I wish you still didn't.'

Your words were slurred, but still sharp enough to cut through me. I stood there feeling weak soaking in everything you had said. I stormed out before I could cry, and sat on Dylan's stoop, trying to conceal the chest-throbbing pain. I knew you didn't mean any of it. I hoped. They always say that drunken words are sober thoughts and I couldn't help but believe it. I had wasted your time and mine for the past ten months. Everything was turned upside-down, inside-out. Everything was over. But the worst was yet to come.

**'You know, they say that there is a part  
of the human chest that if you strike it hard enough  
the person's heart explodes. This sounds like such a lie  
that I have to believe it's the truth. If I were science,  
I'd never tell anyone where this place is. If I were science,  
I'd have named this place after you.'**

-Cristin O'Keefe, _Not As Smart As I Think I Am_

And it was when I was making my way upstairs to clean up my tears, when I caught you with Eva.

At the top of the stairs, you sat with your arms around her waist, and your lips on hers. Every part of my body shook with a tremendous storm and there was no way I could have controlled whatever I did from that point, drunk or sober.

'How could you?' I can remember managing to choke out through my tight throat, being thrown into a feeling of severe nausea. I turned around straight away, running towards the front door. By now the commotion had started and within seconds, people had caught onto the scenario.

I felt your arms grab hold of my shoulder outside and I shook you off like a disease. I didn't want to be anywhere around you.

'Grace-'

'DON'T TOUCH ME, GET AWAY FROM ME!' I felt like I was having an out of body experience, watching the event unfold from a little corner in the sky. Watching in horror. 'How could you do this? I wasted ten damn months thinking about you. You've literally just ruined everything. I feel sick.'

'I'm sorry, OK? I wasn't thinking.' You were in a similar state to the last time, when I had to drive you home.

'Get away from me!' I hollered, but your grasp on me was too strong. You held on like a drowning man, choking for air, for forgiveness. 'I'm done. I'm sorry, I give up. I tried to help you, Jo! I never once turned my back on you. It's over, I'm sorry.'

I noticed Eva sobbing on the grass nearby, and Dylan had rushed out to break you away from me after trying to console her. She eventually got up unsteadily, standing barefoot and wiping tonnes of mascara from her cheeks. 'I'm so sorry, Grace!' She moaned, trying her best to walk towards me. I felt so dizzy; I was so sure I would either throw up or pass out.

'Grace, listen to me. Look at me. It was a mistake, that's all it was and all it will ever be.' I could almost hear the tears in your throat as you pleaded to me. Mainly, I noticed how everyone had flocked outside witness the minor uproar. The air was so cold.

'Come with me. Let's go home, right now.' You supplicated, rather than ordered.

'You really don't get it, do you?' I laughed bitterly, full on venom and agony. My face was still wet with tears.

Cherry Lawson and Amanda Green began making their way to Cherry's car, where Eva pitifully followed after throwing me a look drenched in apology. Dylan made it clear that you should leave and you eventually gave up, letting go of me. 'I'm sorry, Grace. And I love you. You will probably never believe me but it's true. I didn't mean anything I said or did, I didn't. I love you. I love you, Grace.'

I stood on the lawn in the freezing cold while everyone watched us, not uttering a word. Dylan held my shoulder and ushered me to his car. 'Let me take you home.'

'This is your party, you can't leave.' I tried talking, but my voice came out as a feeble whisper. I could feel the tears coming back.

'It doesn't matter. You need to get home; it won't take long to get you there. The party's almost over now, anyway. I need to make sure everyone here is safe, including you.'

'It's OK, I can walk.' I sniffed.

'Come on; let's go quickly before things get out of hand.'

The last time I saw you, you sat on the lawn with your legs crossed, trying to light a Marlboro Light, and failing miserably. Your eyes were focused on the lighter in deep attentiveness, trying to block out everything else. The street light illuminated you and exposed the defined contours of your face. You sat with a glowing roll-up between your lips, and dark brown hair that tumbled in tousled waves to your shoulders. And I'm not sure it's possible to fall out of love. Even when the heart is broken, and it all pours out through the cracks, I think it seeps into the internal organs and through the spine. I think it is released into the blood flow and inside the soft tissue of my lungs. So even though you hurt me, it doesn't change the fact that I fell in love with you and it will never get out of my system.

I sat next to Dylan as he drove through my neighbourhood, drawing closer to my house. The time on his dashboard said it was almost eleven o'clock.

He broke the sad silence that loomed around us.

'I'm sorry about how everything went.'

'It's not your fault, Dylan. You don't need to apologise. I've heard too much of that word recently.'

'This is the craziest party I've ever hosted. It was just bedlam.'

'I don't think there's ever any order on Halloween.'

He held onto the steering wheel, tapping his thumb on the leather skin. 'Do you mind me asking who Amy is?'

My heart dropped. 'You heard us?'

'Yeah, I did. I mean, it was a pretty intense argument.' He chuckled awkwardly.

'Amy is Jonah's sister. She passed away last year. It drove him into depression, so he moved away. I was there to help him out when he dipped again, but obviously it was all for nothing.'

'Don't believe a single word he said just then, OK? It was just the drink talking. I'm pretty sure he didn't mean it.'

'Whether he meant it or not, he said it. It might be even worse if he didn't mean it, because it meant it was still somewhere in his mind and he felt the need to amplify it.'

'I'll tell you what… just get to bed tonight. Fall asleep straight away, OK? In the morning, make yourself a November brew. Sit at home, watch stupid shows on TV, and chat with your parents or whatever. Don't touch Facebook. Don't answer any of Jo's calls or texts, or Eva's for that matter. Clear out your mind, inside and out. And once you've recuperated a little bit, you can try again the next day. If it helps, you should write a diary. It could be to yourself, it could be to Jo, or anyone. Write everything you remember and how it makes you feel and hold on to it. Maybe one day when you're old and grey, you can look back at it and realise that life is much more than a messy breakup or a petty argument.'

'That's lovely advice, Dylan. Thank you.'

'It's cool. Eva was always really bad with words, and I could just tell. I told her to write it all down, and I would read it once she was done. It always worked. Most of the stuff she wrote was just babble and a bunch of eccentric doodles, but it really opened her up to me. I knew who she really was because of it. Maybe Jo doesn't understand you enough. He's opened himself up to you, but he probably feels like your curtains are still drawn. Try it out.'

'I might do,' I murmured, watching the streetlights rush past, leaving streams of light in my eyes.

There was a small space of quiet before he piped up again.

'Has Eva mentioned any news to you lately?'

'What about?'

'Uhm… nothing. I was just wondering.'

'Tell me.' I pleaded.

'I can't… it's up to Eva to tell you. But it hurts to keep it to myself.'

'I won't tell her I know. Please, just tell me.'

'I don't know whether it is right to tell you… but I'm just so upset by how everything turned out. I never show it, but it hurts. I feel like I need someone to confide in.'

What followed had caused me to lose my breath. I couldn't believe it. I was shocked, angry and a million other emotions amalgamated into one indescribable feeling.

'No.'

He cleared his throat. 'We were going to get back together; it was all planned out. And I can't really say I saw that curveball coming. It should be the worst news of my life. But I'm starting college next year, and I already have a decent-paid job. It should work out, right?'

I chose not to reply, but to breathe in the revelation. 'But it's all messed up, now. I guess this whole world is just a cock-up. A recipe for disaster. I try to keep my chin up and wipe away my mistakes, and I try to forgive Eva and deal with her spontaneity, but it all comes back to me. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I'm sorry.'

'We're just a tangled speck in the universe. A tiny planet of mishaps in the Milky Way.' I whispered.

'I wish we lived on Mars. I think everything is simpler over there.' He managed a smile.

The car halted slowly outside my driveway, and I stumbled out with the cold again lashing out at me. By now the streets were empty with absence of Trick-or-Treaters, and the rustle of autumn leaves scraped against the ground.

'Thank you for the lift home. Even though I could have walked.'

'There's no way I can let you walk alone at this time of night.'

'But you left your party…'

'That doesn't mean anything. I think everyone should be on their way out now.'

I stood awkwardly on the sidewalk. 'What are you going to do about Eva?'

'Oh… I don't know. I just need to clear up things at home. I'll talk to her tomorrow, when everything has calmed down.' He sighed. 'I need to approach this as well as I can.'

I realised that Dylan and I were both broken people. And we were broken by other broken people; it was just a chain reaction. We had all slipped and fallen and we couldn't go back. No matter how hard we tried, we knew that these were memories that we'd never be able to escape. But I think Ernest Hemingway was right:

**'We're stronger in the places that we've been broken.'**

Love Grace.

**PART THREE.**

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

**'She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, like when you're swimming and you think you want to put your feet down on something solid, but the water's deeper than you think and there's nothing there.'**

-Julia Gregson, _East of the Sun_

The following morning, I was awakened by sudden sunlight streaming through my thin curtains. It blinded my shuttered eyelids, causing them to open, squinting. The morning felt cold, bringing autumn air from outside onto my sleeping skin. I rose before stretching my bones to the ceiling and stepping out onto my bedroom floor. I woke up still seething but the anger had slightly subsided through my slumber. I remembered the advice Dylan gave me; start the day off with a cup of tea and refresh my thoughts. I wouldn't try calling or making any means of communication. You were probably extremely hung-over, anyway.

I walked across the bathroom to brush my teeth and shower. Taking a long look at myself in the mirror, I decided to analyse my features; something I hadn't done in a very long time. I think I might have gained a few pounds lately; my face was slightly fuller than it used to be, but only by a fraction. My flaxen blonde hair lay flat and limp on my naked skin as I was about to step into the steaming water. My eyes were still the grey they had always been. Nothing seemed to have changed.

This was going to be the day where I started off fresh – no distractions from anyone. I would just sit on the sofa and eat whatever I wanted, watch whatever show I wanted for the rest of the day. Tiny snowflakes had already began falling as if to mark the first day of November, and I could feel Christmas creeping around the corner already.

At 10: 49am, I began to make my way downstairs. The eerie silence of the ground floor confused me. Why wasn't my mother singing vociferously to music as it blasted from front room speakers? Why, as I entered the kitchen, was there water in the kettle that looked as if it had been left before it had the chance to be made into tea? The moment I stepped downstairs and heard the quiet was the moment I knew something was wrong.

I walked into the living room to see my mother staring blankly ahead with a phone receiver held in the palm of her hand. I knew she had just gotten off a call.

She turned to me with an extremely remorseful look on her face, and my confusion turned to downright concern.

'What's wrong, Mom?'

'Grace, there's something you need to know,'

'What? Tell me.' My heart rate augmented. I felt the same dizziness that had come over me last night.

'…There was an incident outside the Huntington National Park last night at eleven twenty-six pm.'

'What happened, Mom? Just say it.' I already feared the worst, feeling my skin prickle with uneasy heat.

'Two cars collided on a diverging road, east of the entrance. There was one fatality and six injuries; one critical.'

'Who were they?' I was finding it hard to breathe.

I could see her hands shaking, still clutching to the receiver. 'Dylan's car drove straight into the car Jonah was in. The park ranger heard the collision from a couple hundred yards away from the scene. He drove over to find Dylan's car capsized and the other one completely damaged, on the side of the rode.' She took a deep breath. 'Dylan died at the scene, and everyone else was rushed straight to hospital once the emergency services arrived. Jonah suffered minor injuries to the body, but quite a serious head injury. He is in a critical condition as of right now.'

'You're kidding me, right?' I choked back.

'I'm not, Grace. He was rushed to A&E. After that he was taken to the ICU because he was unresponsive.'

'Oh, God,' I uttered.

'This is horrible news. I'm so sorry.'

I tried not to cry. 'Who told you?'

'Jonah's mother rang me. She thought it would be right for you to know.'

I combed a hand through my hair, sighing. 'Dylan's dead?' The realisation punched me right in the face. My head was about to explode.

'He didn't make it. He was the only one in his vehicle. It's thought he was driving back home after driving past the Park. The people in Jo's car were heading in the opposite direction, towards the gates. It was a very bad collision. They must have been driving at unbelievable speed.'

'No, no, no, no.' I whimpered. 'Was Eva there? Is she OK?'

'She suffered a shattered thighbone. Everyone else suffered minor injuries, including the driver.'

'This is my entire fault.' I said, suddenly.

'I'm sorry, what?'

'It was my fault. Dylan drove me home that night, and then he drove back to his house. If he hadn't had done it, then he wouldn't have crashed into the other car. He wouldn't be dead and Jonah wouldn't be in the hospital.' I cried.

'Grace-'

'No, it's true! I did this. I let this happen.' The tears were overflowing. 'I caused that collision, all because I let him take me home.'

'Olivia Grace Silverman, the _only _people responsible for this would be the people at the crash site, and nowhere else. Don't you dare even think about blaming yourself for any of this. You don't deserve this pain.'

'I should have been there for Jonah, Mom! I came home and I didn't think about his safety, or his recklessness. It's my all my fault, don't you get it?' I hollered. 'I didn't give him the help when he needed it the most. I can't live with this. I can't.'

I was seeing red, and I was oblivious to anything else. Of course I shouldn't have let you get in the car and ride off to the National Park – Cherry told me that you might go, and I should have known that driving in pitch darkness with extremely rowdy company wouldn't end well. I let my heartbreak get to me.

I had killed Dylan. I had abandoned you, all because I felt like I was the victim the entire time.

**'Does nobody understand?'**

-James Joyce's last words

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-FIVE.**

**'Sometimes you just can't save someone from themselves.'**

-Dave Grohl, _In response to Kurt Cobain's suicide_

Sleep was so very seldom after the accident. If I did, my short-lived rests would consist of vivid nightmares. They made me feel so vulnerable and traumatised. I just couldn't endure the extremity of how real everything felt or looked; sometimes I would wake up, expecting to see shimmering blood dripping from the panes of my windows as Amy hung over the glass, like my dream told me. Sometimes I would see constant repeats of the car Amy was in, colliding fiercely with something in the distance before cartwheeling violently into the air and revolving through time and space at the speed of light. I would feel the glass shatter into my skin, even as I watched from afar, and the ear-splitting sound of the car plunging into the cold, hard ground was enough to make me scream both in my terrifying fantasy and in reality.

The night after the accident occurred, I dreamt about something similar to when you first told me about Amy.

We were together like before sitting in a meadow on a hot summer's day. We did things like plait each other's hair, talk, and laugh as if she were Eva. At one point, she turned to me and told me that you weren't coming back, ever. I yelled at her, telling her how much of a liar she was. I didn't want to believe any word she uttered from that point. The more I yelled and screamed at her, the darker the clouds became before raindrops the size of my fist began plummeting from the sky above. And with each drop that soaked Amy, her body began to vanish in the rain until I was yelling at nothing but storm-drenched grass.

The last dream I can definitely remember having around that time was one of the crash you were in. This time, you were riding shotgun and I was in control of the steering wheel. No one else was involved, except us. The car dived over the cliff edge we spent evenings chatting on and despite the severity of the crash, I survived unharmed, but you perished. Your ghost later came to haunt me, asking why I didn't try and save you. All I could do was stand motionless, frozen, with no way to answer such a question. The intense guilt I felt weighed heavily in my chest, causing me to suffocate in my sleep.

You were in the majority of my dreams and you rarely survived any of them. Somehow you perished one way or another. Every single time, I had to stand there helplessly and watch. And what if you don't survive in real life? I know it was still early days, but with early days come intense raging thoughts that explore every avenue of every possibility and do not settle until time begins to reveal the true destiny of everything.

The amount of times my mother would come rushing to my aid in the space of three nights almost felt infinite. I was never safe, whether awake or asleep.

My mother walked into my bedroom this morning to hand me a small envelop with my name on the front. As my eyes slowly came into focus, the small white square became more recognisable as folded paper with my name written on it in messy handwriting that could only be described as your unique calligraphy.

'Isabelle found this in Jonah's room last night. It was addressed to you, so she didn't open it. She thought it was best it was given to the intended person.'

'What is it?' I took hold of it, studying the envelope with curiosity. 'We don't know what it is. all we know is that he wrote it for you, and it is best that _you _read it.

My curiosity ripped through to the front of my mind, forcing me to open the envelope as rapidly as my tired hands could. Heart racing, I began to open up the folds that encased a few pages of words. I knew from the moment I saw it, what it was going to be. I was prepared. I hoisted myself on the bed and with shaking fingers, I began to read.

Dear Olivia Grace Silverman,

Ok, first I would like to apologise for the sheer fact on how completely out of it I am right now. I'm in a jail cell right now (which can I just point out, smells like everything you've ever hated turned into a scent). Other than that I don't really feel much. I guess it's just numbness, all in my system. I don't ever want to talk about how I got into a fight because the guy said Amy was worthless. That she was just another person and that nobody should be putting so much time and effort into her death. He said, 'we'll all die one day. Should every person have Japanese lanterns lifted off into the sky for them?' I can remember everything he said, and how he said it. I don't really remember when I lashed out, but I did, and now I'm here.

That guy was right. Everybody does die. But doesn't it matter how soon? Or doesn't it? It's a finish line we'll all cross, regardless of anything. And if there really is a Heaven, I really hope I can start over. This life has just been a pure mess. Maybe it was destined to be that way. I once watched a movie once, called The Fountain. I remember someone saying something about how our bodies are prisons for our soul, and when we die, our souls are really freed. I want to believe that.

Maybe you can see where I'm going with this letter, because I'm not sure I know. But let's just call it an emergency suicide letter. In case I ever decide to kick the bucket and the action is so spontaneous, I do not have time to write anything. Maybe I'm right; we can start fresh when we die.

I honestly feel so unfulfilled, and nothing can ever change that. I know you tried, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don't even know why I feel like this anymore. I can't blame Amy's death forever. I think it must be something inside me - a switch, a cog turned wrong. I'm a faulty person.

I was born on December 18th, 1995 around five minutes prior to the birth of Amy Beth Christopher. The only thing she was better at by the tiniest degree, was winning people over. She just had that charm. It was already in her eyes; she was born with it. I could deal with something like that. I mean, she was my sister and being twinned with such an amazing person meant you got just as much recognition. People were forever fascinated by us and I just lapped in all the attention. You know me, always seeking for courtesy, haha.

I never thought she would beat me at the dying game. I know we were the same age so it didn't really matter, but it was always supposed to be me before her. I was supposed to die first. It only makes sense, right?

I was so angry for so long after the accident. Nothing added up anymore. God was either extremely evil or non-existent, so I decided to believe in the latter. That's when I started to believe in Heaven because Amy needed some place to live afterwards. Remember that time we talked about Heaven at the Edge? It feels like so long ago. Anyway, I'm changing the subject.

I'm sorry about everything. I've been a huge burden on you, I apologise. It will get better once I'm out of the equation one day. Whenever it is. I'm like that odd number you have to get rid of to balance out both sides of the equal sign. I'm just a mess, chaos. I'm a mistake. I'm sorry.

The paper is smudging. The ink is running away and it's irritating me because I can't really see what I'm writing. I cried a lot on the way here because I could see the town lights glimmering and they reminded me of nights on the Edge and they made me really miss everything.

I don't want to wake up tomorrow. I'm not being selfish because it's better for you, Grace. It would benefit all of us.

If there's one thing you've taught me, it's the art of forgetting. I have learnt to let go of what is pulling me down. I've learnt to erase my memories. However they are not completely gone. They'll only go when I go.

I want to tell you that the night we spent on your birthday one of the best nights of my life and I would gladly relive it If I die one day, just don't be annoyed with me. Make sure I'm turned to ash, because I'm claustrophobic. Sprinkle me across the flowers or something. Don't put me in a vase. Just scatter me into the soil.  
I want to tell you that I love you and I thank you for prolonging my death. I would have been turned earth and dust a long time ago. Thank you for giving me the chance to be feel better. Thank you. Thank you.  
I feel really tired; maybe I should take a nap.

Tell Mom and Dad that everything's OK. If they get this first which they might, then they should understand. I've been to so many therapists and shrinks and counseling sessions but they were just money being taken out of my parents' pockets. I want to thank them for trying their best. They really did try.

Make sure everyone is happy when I'm gone. Don't make it a big deal. I don't care if everyone forgets about me, so long as you don't. Please Grace, you can do anything you want, but please never forget me. You taught me to prioritise my memories and I hope that I can always be in yours.

I love you and I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry Grace.

I'm so so so sorry, I'm tired.

I'm tired and I need some rest, I might wake up tomorrow and I'll throw this letter away in embarrassment if I do. It's quite a pathetic excuse for a goodbye letter, I know. It really is. As Anne Sexton once said in her book_ A Self Portrait in Letters, _'I am a dismantled collection of almosts.'

I'm sorry.

I love you.

Goodnight.

Love Jonah.

I don't want to end up as depressed as you were. I knew first-hand what it was like to deal with it. The thought of it even happening shook me. I don't want you to watch me disintegrate as I had watched you or you had watched Amy. There was no way that I could let it happen.

I began to get angry at times because of how selfish you were in doing what you did. It's like you completely forgot that lives interweave and connect, and whatever you did would affect other people, similar to a chain reaction. I thought you loved me, so why did you just get up and leave not only me, but scars that could never be healed again? You tried so hard to forget about the pain, that you ended up throwing your heavy load onto my fragile back. Your pain hit me harder than I ever thought it could.

I tried to understand that it was not all your fault; you ultimately didn't want any of this to happen. You didn't want her life to end so instantly. She was your only sister. There was a part of you inside her, somewhere. If souls really do live on, why did a piece of you die with her?

It the end, none of it was your fault and I just needed to realise that.

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-SIX.**

**'Sometimes I think the spaces between the stars are filled with your silence.'**

-Sherry Thomas, _Not Quite A Husband_

Brooke came all the way from Alvarado to visit you today. It's been almost a month since the crash. Can you believe that?

She took a visit to my house in the middle of the afternoon after spending some of the morning with you. It was the second time I'd seen her and the first time my mother had seen any other relative of yours other than your parents.

She arrived on my front door, covering her long hair in a furry hooded jacket. The snow has already started coming in, along with the annoying sound of popular Christmas pop songs and ballads. We embraced the minute she stepped inside my hallway despite how cold she was.

'It's been a while,' she smiled.

Brooke greeted my mother, who spoke her condolences as sincerely as she could to her.

We whipped up a cup of tea and sat in the living room, watching the TV.

'How is he doing?' I asked.

'Well, it's hard to say. But I think he's getting better. Apparently he'll be out of it by Christmas. I hope before his birthday. I mean, who would want to sleep through the turning point of their adulthood?' she grinned, before drawing her lips back into a straight line. 'They said that Jonah will most likely suffer from retrograde amnesia if he wakes up. I'm guessing you already knew that, right?'

'Yeah, I guessed.'

'But they don't know how long it will stretch out. It could be a couple of months, a year or more.

'Other than that, he'll be OK right?'

'Most probably. For a while he may suffer from anterograde amnesia but it's supposedly only going to last for about a week.'

'Anterograde?'

He'll forget smaller events, after the onset of the amnesia for a couple of minutes at a time. He'll be fine though.'

I stalled before finally speaking. 'Brooke, do you mind if I tell you something?'

'Sure, what is it about?'

'Do you remember everything you told me the morning after Jonah got arrested?'

'Yeah, why?'

'Well, he wrote a suicide letter in the cellar. It wasn't for any particular attempt; he just felt as if he could do it one day and he needed something to leave behind.'

'How did you find out about this?' she turned to face me directly.

'Apparently he left an envelope addressed to me in his room, and your mother found it. I read it, and that's what I found.'

She turned away, looking out somewhere. I didn't really know if that somewhere was anywhere except a distant place in her mind

'I knew it. I always knew it. Even when Mom and Dad didn't know, it was just _obvious. _I was prepared for it.'

'Didn't you want to try and stop it?'

'What, from three-hundred miles away? And Grace, he didn't send that letter to me. He poured his heart out to _you._'

She began to cry; something I was surprised to see. Since I had met her, I came to the idea that her emotions were rock hard, carved from stone. It was strange to see her crumble.

'Is that Amy's?' she mumbled, staring at my necklace.

'Yes, Jo gave it to me.'

She huffed. 'I thought he would do something like that.'

'I was just four when Amy and Jo were born, so I don't remember much. There are tonnes of photos all around the house of our childhood, though. And videos. I took a few with me when I moved into campus, so I could watch them on a lonely night in if I had run out of movies. It felt good to dive into the past, where nothing was as traumatic as things are today. I just hate the fact that I feel like I'm carrying all this pain - all these memories just hitched up on my back, and I can't shake them off.'

'I understand.'

'Well yeah, it's a universal thing. We don't realise, but I feel like fifteen per cent of our hearts are full of someone else's pain.'

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-SEVEN.**

**'Whenever she thought she could not feel more alone, the universe peeled back another layer of darkness.'**

-Janet Fitc, _Paint It Black_

Today is November 25th, the day of Dylan's funeral. It took place in the late morning, and the reception was over at his family's house. It was really only for extremely close friends and family, so I decided to opt out of it. Eva was invited, but also declined. The service was enough for her.

The police started an inquest on Dylan's death, which included an autopsy. It turned out that he hadn't drank over the legal limit and it was fine for him to drive – so, Jeremy Shaw would be the one facing charges. Breath tests he took at the hospital confirmed that he was in no shape to drive that night. He had actually caused the crash, swerving into Dylan's car whilst trying to swerve _out _of the way, thinking that he was heading straight for him. I think he'll be going to court soon to face charges for driving under the influence, which is a nice thought. The minimum fine is $500 and the maximum being $2,000. He'll also be in jail for a maximum of five years if he is found guilty. I try and make myself feel pity for him somewhere within me, but it's not really possible to. Not with the unnecessary damage he caused. He didn't have to drive that night.

'Are you OK?' I called Eva over the phone before the service.

'Yeah, I'm fine. I think.' I heard her sigh nervously over the line.

'Just try and remind yourself that this is a celebration, not mourning. He lived once and that's the best part of it all.'

'Yeah, I know. But I'm not going to think of it that way - 'It's OK that he's dead, because he lived once.' No, it's not.'

'It's not OK but there's a bright side to this.'

'I don't think I'll ever open my eyes wide enough to see it.'

I decided to wear a black leather skater dress with my Coltrane boots. My mother drove me down to the church where quite a few people congregated. I could recognise some of the faces as those who turned up to his fateful party. Cherry, Amanda and Frank also arrived.

The church was a traditional kind with the wooden pews and the podium on the stage. Huge organ pipes lined up the back of the hall, and in front of them stood Dylan's coffin. There were a tonne of flowers veiling the tough mahogany surface. It was decided that he would have a closed casket.

I held onto Eva's hand as we sat two rows from the front and I felt her tight grip, stripping the bloodflow from my knuckles. She wasn't crying at all, but I knew staring at the ground was her defence mechanism to stop the tears from coming through.

People came to the front to read out their eulogies, including Dylan's parents and his fourteen-year-old sister Janice. Unfortunately, she couldn't read it all out. By the time she was ushered back to her seat, she was in hysterics.

The things that made it worse were the amounts of photos held up around him. I know it must have been like stabbing Eva in the heart; seeing his blue eyes and his bright smile plaster the room, knowing he was in here laying inanimate. It was almost like a cover-up of the ultimate truth.

'I can't stay in here. I think I'm going to be sick.' She whispered, before quickly standing up to leave. People watched as she limped hurriedly down the aisle, covering her face with shaking palms. I decided to follow.

'What's wrong?'

'I feel light-headed. My stomach hurts. I don't know what's come over me.'

'It's the service, isn't it?'

'Well... I don't know. I don't think so. It just came out of nowhere… I felt fine when I walked in.'

'Maybe you should just leave early-'

'I want to go to the crash site.' She blurted.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, I'm sure. I want to go back. I know everyone left flowers on the side of the road. I want to see them.'

'OK.' I replied. Winter was not our best friend; the bitter ice painted the ground, meaning it was a hazard just to walk and a pain to step outside in artic temperatures. Even with a coat on, Eva shivered like mad. She adjusted her crutches, trying not to let them slip on the frost.

We waited inside the entrance of the church where we could hear hymns being played, before my mother arrived to pick us up.

'Mom, please take us to the site. Eva wants to go there.'

'National Park, right?'

'Yes.'

We found ourselves standing before a monstrously tall pine tree, metres away from the incident. It wasn't too far from the entrance of the park, so it was accessible for people to come and leave their respects in the form of cards and flowers. There was a T-shirt pinned against the bark of the tree with terrible sharpie handwriting scrawled on it, reading _keep rocking on, Dylan!_

It's still quite strange to think that I was potentially the last person he talked to that night. I can remember him spilling out his feelings, which I think is something he didn't do often. I found out the person he was, right before I would never get the chance to find out anything more from him.

Eva found a patch of grass to slowly sit down on, putting her clutches on the space next to her. She spent a long time reading each card and looking at the flowers, which were wilting by now. There were also a few _get well soon _cards for you there. After fifteen solid minutes had passed, we finally gave in to the torturous weather and headed back to my mother's car. We were driven back to Eva's house, where she offered me to stay over.

A voice in my head wanted me so badly to tell her that I knew what Dylan had told me. She knew that he drove me back home, but not what we talked about, or if we talked at all. I had to keep it to myself and see if she was willing to say it herself eventually. After all, I was her closest friend, right?

Still, she kept quiet about it.

We spent the rest of the evening watching throwback Disney movies from the nineties, whilst feasting on popcorn and trying our best to laugh through the pain.

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-EIGHT.**

**'What would be the point of living if we didn't let life change us?'**

-Mrs Carson, _from Downton Abbey_

Your mother Isabelle called this morning, requesting if I could come and visit her. The last time we had seen each other was when your parents came over to have a long discussion with my mother in the front room as you all consumed copious amounts of tea, just the other day. The mood was melancholic and quiet. You are still in the hospital today, on the 26th of November.

Your mother and I met at the local cafe, where I ordered a Caramel Frappuccino blended beverage, and she went for the Vanilla Spice Latte. I watched her hold back tears after taking a sip of her coffee and telling me how much she thanked me for saving you.

'You see, Amy's gone now. There is no way we can ever get her back. One day, we'll meet her again. However when that happens, is between The Lord and Him only.'

I nodded, accepting her words.

'My son was so close, Grace. He was inches away from leaving us and I have been driven into madness since the time he's spent in that hospital. I can't sleep not knowing if he'd make it or not. The doctors say he has an eighty per cent chance of survival, which is a good thing, right?'

The pain in her breaking voice translated volumes, causing my heart to tremble like her lips. She buried her hand in her sleeve and wiped the tears.

I was completely and utterly confused. How could she possibly think that I saved you? I had let you go, just as much as everybody else had. You could have died but you didn't and that's just pure fate. It had nothing to do with me physically or mentally; how could it? I was just another person who tried so hard so hard to bring you out of your shadowy depths and failed miserably. You drowned before all of us as we attempted to pull you out from the gushing waves of dejection.

'He would have died a long time ago, back in Alvarado. If not then, probably not long before we moved here. He would have done something crazier if he hadn't had met you. He loved you very much and you know that. You were the only person in this entire world other than Amy who gave his life a meaning, and he embraced that. He embraced it until the antidepressants became useless. Grace, he didn't want to die. The depression wanted to kill him.'

I thought back to the letter and realised how similar you and your mother's minds work. I know she never read the letter, but she repeated a part of it in her own words.

Your mother and I sat and cried for a while, holding onto each other's hands over the table.

To think that I saved you in an unusual sort of way, put my frantic heart at rest just as it had wished for so long.

Love Grace.

**TWENTY-NINE.**

**'To love life, to love it even  
when you have no stomach for it  
and everything you've held dear  
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,  
your throat filled with the silt of it.  
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat  
thickening the air, heavy as water  
more fit for gills than lungs;  
when grief weights you like your own flesh  
only more of it, an obesity of grief,  
you think, How can a body withstand this?  
Then you hold life like a face  
between your palms, a plain face,  
no charming smile, no violet eyes,  
and you say, yes, I will take you  
I will love you, again.'**

-Ellen Bass, _The Thing Is_

Today is December 4th: The day that you became responsive to sensual stimuli.

I was told you began to flutter your eyelids or move your fingers slightly. You began to come back to life this morning, at 9:17am.

My mother told me the minute she found out. The extreme relief I felt knew no bounds. I started crying right there and then, knowing that you were still here. You didn't leave me like Amy left you and I knew I would never have to endure the pain you went through. The potential chain of grief was broken.

What the doctor predicted was correct: you had indeed, lost your memory. It was hard to say how much of it at the point that you could communicate, but I was told that the only people you were calling for around three hours subsequent to your awakening, happened to be your parents and Amy. I knew from then on that you had lost enough memory to be wiped clean of me. As soon as I realised you had no idea who I was, my heart was instantly broken.

I found it quite ironic that despite your frequent pleas to forget about everything you had suffered from, it would have taken away the memory of me. It did, and it couldn't have hurt any more than it did.

I tried to think back at the last year.

I remembered the first time we met, at that party in January.

I remembered the second time we met short after and how you had convinced me to love you with every word you spoke.

I remembered when we would hang out for hours on end at the Edge, talking about anything and everything.

I remembered the night when you told me about your sister and how I vowed to be there for you through every rough patch you endured.

I remembered when you let me into the deepest, darkest corners of your mind and I still stayed, when you thought I wouldn't.

I remembered saving you from overdosing on capsules or poisoning yourself with liquor.

I remembered your kisses, soft and untainted compared to your spirit.

I remembered all of this, and how much would you remember?

None.

It's still unusual to think that you wouldn't even remember me, which I still find a seriously alien concept; I just couldn't except that you had misplaced that connection of familiarity, and it hurt just a little. That was one of the motives to my feelings of melancholy. It was because you had forgotten a lot. And there was nothing that I could really do about it all.

I supposed that in a way it was also sort of liberating. You once told me that the only way the nightmares and the emotions and the memories would die is if you went along with them; your wish was granted by the most unusual touch of fate and you still got the chance to be alive. To start fresh as a blank slate. Even if you didn't know where you lived now, or the names of your new friends or of my existence, it brought a certain peace to my mind to know that you had won the battle you had been fighting so viciously against for so long. It really was a long time coming.

We could start again. I would meet you and introduce myself with much more confidence and charm than the first time. You would fall for me as hard as I fell for you, as I stood there smiling with my blond hair and grey eyes. I would show you photos of our past life and you would realise how much in love we were. Nothing would matter anymore because things would start to become like before.

I started to think about whether you would actually still like me or not. With your new memory, would it change your perspective on things? I'm guessing you thought you were still with Sofia, so how could you possibly accept that you had moved on without even knowing? I just remembered all the things you had ever said to me and I realised that the truth and sincerity of each word would be determined in due time.

Then I thought about Amy.

Imagine waking up to find out that your sister died almost a year and a half ago? How would you take that? I could understand how the depression would have accumulated during the first few months of her absence, but would you take into account that you've had so long to grieve? Would you let go, just as you wanted to?

I just hoped for the best.

The snow has arrived, painting Huntington a blinding white. Winter is a long-lost love, coming back to embrace me with cold arms. It is an icy cold breath, rippling goose bumps onto my skin. Winter cries at night, howling with the vicious winds and pounding on my bedroom window. It is the weather that caused me to write all of my sorrows with a warm beverage on my bedside table. It keeps us sitting by the fire with my mother telling stories of her youth, along with her teenage love stories. It has brought us closer together, holding us hostage indoors. Winter buries secrets that autumn left behind, and promises to hold them beneath the frost-covered earth.

Love Grace.

**THIRTY.**

**'Maybe one morning I'll wake up and step outside of myself to look back at the old me lying dead among the sheets.'**

-Markus Zusak, _I Am The Messenger_

Today was December sixteenth, which was also your eighteenth birthday. Today was one of the best days I've ever had.

It's been two weeks since you woke up, and two weeks since I last wrote in this diary. A lot had has happened since then – first of all, I've been boiling with apprehensiveness, non-stop. I knew that we would have to meet some time soon. I didn't understand why I was so afraid about the entire concept. I'm guessing you were told enough about me and you were intrigued in seeing me in person. You'd had a fortnight to get used to everything and find out where you really stood, and I was just another addition to that. I guess my biggest fear was the fact that you wouldn't like me like you used to.

A blizzard had recently subdued, causing the roads to open up again. That's when my mother decided that I go and visit you.

'Don't you want go and see him?' She had asked me, clutching onto chamomile tea as she sat on the sofa.

'Yeah, of course. Sort of. I don't know.'

'It's OK. I can understand how you feel. You just must be terrified of starting again, right?'

And I was. It was almost like writing pages and pages of stories, only for them to be blown away into the wind or sunken to the bottom of the ocean and all you can do is watch as the ink runs and blends with the water until everything you had spent so hard working on was gone.

'What if he doesn't like me? To him, he hasn't broken up with Sofia. He would still love her, right? There's no reason not to. All of that happened after Amy left.'

'I think what you have to think about, Grace,' she began after sipping her cup, 'is that you have to learn to adapt to the present time. Many people are caught up in their past which is what stops them from continuing on with their life. A little birdy told me that once.' She smiled. 'That obviously happened in Jonah's case. But just imagine this; you go to sleep one night and wake up in the hospital the next. You expected everything to be the same as last night, right? Instead, you're front in a completely different town and the only people with you that you know are your parents. Everybody else is gone, just like that. How would you feel? Because I know I would feel pretty damn scared. Let's say that you were discharged from the hospital around a week later and made your way to your 'brand new' house. You would have to get used to the blueprint of your new home. Your parents would explain everything to you – well at least everything you need to know – and you'd spend the next couple of weeks trying your best to catch up.

Surely you wouldn't hang on to the past when the bridge connecting the past to the present has been torn down. If you couldn't even remember what had happened between then and now, how could you still believe that things hadn't changed? You would understand. So however much Jonah loved Sofia, he would know that it didn't work out and he would know that there's somebody new in his life that he loves much more. He'll know.'

I sat and stared at my mother for a while as I let the revelation sink into my skin. I hoped she was right; I hoped that you would understand that time changes everything.

My mother drove to your house the midst of falling snow as I sat shotgun, with my heart racing vigorously in my chest. Christmas break had begun and the carolling had started around the neighbourhood already. Of course during the time you left the hospital, you never attended school. It was sort of unusual, not having company to walk me back home in the darkness that the late afternoon brought. I was just not used to being alone anymore. You had always been with me, even if your mind was elsewhere.

I said nothing in the course of the entire journey, instead sealing my lips so tight they hurt. My whole body was shivering even as the air conditioning vents blasted warm air onto my skin. I was told that a few friends, including some I knew had congregated at your house to celebrate your return. Eva had texted me that morning to say that she was turning up too.

The nervousness I felt was so intense, I felt as if I could combust or deflate. This could either go terribly wrong or perfectly right. Sofia was so beautiful, and maybe to you, she was still irreplaceable. When you can't find a valid reason to end a relationship and begin a fresh one, why would you?

If it was even possible by the slightest to die from sheer anxiety, I would have expired right there and then. I could hear the crunch of the snow below me as I walked towards the front door of your house at noon. The sky was overcast and the air was bitter, and the wind stung like the panging of fear in the back of my brain. Your mother answered the door, beaming a smile like yours. She enveloped me in a warm embrace before speaking softly in my ear, 'He can't wait to meet you.'

I first saw Eva having a conversation with Cherry in the kitchen. She yelled my name when she saw me, before running up to hug me in her boisterous style. 'He's in the front room. Do you want to see him?' She grinned like an excited child, resting her hands on my shoulders. I was freaking out like mad. I noticed that there were actually many people here; it was like a subdued house party for your birthday that included parents. It was a nice little gathering. The majority of the people were distant friends and acquaintances that you spent your social life making conversations with. I knew Eva had probably called them all over.

'Did you say she's here?' I heard your voice in the other room, causing my head to jerk in that direction. Similar to the first time we met, when you had caught my attention on the front lawn of the party owner's house.

Eva held my hand, leading me through the door to the front room where a group of people sat around the sofa with drinks in their hands. You had risen from your seat, turning to look in my direction. Everybody became extremely silent, and the silence was deafening.

I stood frozen at the end of your front room, paralysed by something that I couldn't describe.

'So,' you spoke, 'I'm guessing you're Grace, right?' You grinned.

'Uhm,' I choked. I could already feel the tears collecting in the walls of my eyes. My chest ached with a heaviness that you could only endure with relief. Still, nobody spoke. Every soul just stared. I could see my mother waiting in the corner with yours. I could feel Eva standing behind me. I could almost sense the smile on her face.

You stood with your long hair down, hanging over the shoulders of the woolly Christmas jumper you wore. Your stance was lean and your composure was calm as you stood and analysed me quietly, with the broadest of smiles planted on your perfect face. I was probably shaking. What for, I don't know.

Before I knew it, seconds had developed and within that time, I found myself swathed in the comfort of your arms, crying from the joy of feeling your skin on mine again. I was crying because it was the only way my body knew how to react. I heard as people applauded and laughed in celebration to our reconciliation. I felt as if we held onto each other for perpetuity and by the time we untangled ourselves, summer would have arrived.

'She's beautiful, isn't she?' I heard you say to somebody as my body stayed pressed against mine.

'I told you!' Eva laughed.

You eventually let go, looking right into me. 'Did you always cry this much?' you asked.

'No,' I murmured, wiping remaining tears from the surface of my face. 'I don't know what's gotten into me.'

'You're just overwhelmed by my handsomeness.'

I giggled. 'I'm just happy that you're here.'

And it was true. I couldn't have been happier.

We sat at the top of your stairs, sharing a drink. It had been a long time since I'd tried any sort of alcoholic beverage and the bitter taste of Beck's was a bit of a challenge to endure. Still, I drank.

It had been almost two hours since we saw each other and after the buzz of it began to melt, we decided to properly sit down and talk alone.

'I found all of this really weird.' You said. 'You know, waking up to a totally different scenario. I began to accept it though. I couldn't be in a state of shock forever. I had to grow accustomed to it all. Life doesn't stop for any human being. If anything, it actually fast-forwards. One day you could be in a certain place at a certain time, happy with the way things are. Then the next, your world decides to rearrange itself in your sleep. You blink, and you have to try and find a new happy to live with the changes. Of course it was hard. It doesn't feel too bad though.

My parents helped me out so much. They spent hours on end teaching me everything. The moment they told me about you was the moment I was adamant to get to know you. There were tonnes of photos in my room and I looked through them all. I knew I was ready to move on once I was educated of your existence.' You smiled.

I decided to ask a question that could have caught you off guard. 'How… how did you feel about Amy?'

'Amy?'

'Yeah.'

'I mean… it really hurt at first. I was really dazed when I woke up, and mom and dad arrived to see me. I asked like a million times where she was, and they told me she wasn't around anymore. They laid it out softly but it still hurt. Anyway I instantly assumed that we were both in some sort of accident that only one of us survived. I began to feel distraught and devastated, until they told me that she passed away seventeen months ago. At this point I'm like, 'what the hell? How long have I been here for?' They told me, 'around four weeks.' I was still confused. But I felt a little better. I knew that I probably had enough time to say goodbye, so the pain wore off after a while.'

The distress that fought with me for days on end had finally given up its battle. From then on, I knew that you wouldn't hurt like before. You hopefully wouldn't drown in your mourning as you had done once before. Whatever you had suffered had died with your memory. Anyone could say, _but what if he'll still end up like before? What if it kicks in again one day unexpectedly? _

I just remembered the look on your face when you first started going through that rough patch and this time it was not present. The demons had been sent back to the hell they attempted to drag you through.

'I'm pretty cool with all you guys. I mean, my friends. They're cool.' You said.

'Did your parents tell you about Dylan?' It felt odd to say his name.

'Yeah, I heard about that. I know about the crash I was in, and most of the stuff that happened. I know your friend Eva was in it, hence her crutches. It must have been pretty bad, to wipe me of my memory. And I'm guessing Dylan was a good guy, looking at all the photos I took with him. I wish I got to know him, or _remember _that I did.'

'Do you miss the guys in Alvarado?'

'Yeah, obviously. I've talked to them on the phone though. It was nice.' You took a last sip of the drink before leaving it beside you. In my mind, the thought of Sofia lingered. As if by magic, you broke the silence that hung afterwards and answered my hidden queries.

'You know my ex, Sofia, right? I heard you met her at Amy's memorial. She's with this new guy called Brent or something. Apparently they've been together since I left. I'm not jealous or anything, I'm just still getting used to it. And what reason do I have to be jealous anyway? I have _you_.'

Eighteen years had finally passed and you were here, beaming with an amalgamation of joy and sheer embarrassment as you blew out your candles in front of your fellow party-goers. You burst open a can of Strongbow and downed it as rapidly as an eighteen-year-old would. Embraces and kisses were delivered by family members around the front room, and your mother cried with contentment like she had never cried before. The marble glimmer in her eyes was enough to set me off, as was the happiness in your father's heart which radiated through. Unfortunately, Brooke couldn't drive over as she had just left and was planning on coming back in a week's time.

My gift to you was concealed in a cardboard box. Enfolded in a sleek azure ribbon for effect, a mound of Polaroid photos, memorabilia, memoirs, and other photography waited inside the container.

We went upstairs later that night and sat on your bedroom floor, encased within the dim light that blazed from a sole lamp on your desk. I watched you expose the gift and study every image in detail, like the disposable where we stood high in the foothills with our arms strained out to the firmament and a milieu of a colony of pine trees, filling up the scenery. There was also the photo where I was administering a packet of Marlboro Lights to you. The breeze carried everything east, including our tousled hair and the flame in your lighter.

I think the one that brought a sense of sentimentality into your consideration was the photo that we took of ourselves, lying in the back seat of your car. I was in my dainty jade bloomy print knee-length dress; you were grinning in your denim dress shier with an unlit cigarette protruding from your curved lips. Anybody could see how happy we were. Anybody could notice, whether they were there or not; whether they remembered or not.

'Thank you so much, Grace. These are so beautiful. I'm so glad to know I've experienced a relationship like this. These photos just make it so much more… real. I feel like I can finally accept that things have changed. According to these, they changed for the better. And this is going to sound so stupid, but…'

'But what?' I asked.

'I know I don't remember much and I probably never will until I wake up one day when I'm forty and it suddenly all comes rushing into my head, but I can already sense some sort of familiarity. And it's not like 'Oh yeah, I totally remember this now.' It kind of feels like something I've experienced in a past life, or dreamt about once. Maybe I did dream about it, in my really long sleep. Maybe I dreamt about everything I had forgotten, just so my brain could take it all in one last time before it was vanished from my memory. You know the annoying thing about dreams, though. Most of the time, ninety-five per cent of them are forgotten soon after you've woken up.' You chuckled, still looking around in the box at cards and bracelets that I had kept in there.

'You don't feel like that much of a stranger to me, Grace.'

That was almost a breakthrough for me. The moment when began to appreciate that things were going to improve and you would eventually get used to me. You would utter my name as if you'd said it all your life, and we would eventually accumulate enough times to reminisce together. We would be like we use to.

Things would be OK one day.

Love Grace.

**THIRTY-ONE.**

**'Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.'**

L.M Montgomery, _The Story Girl_

A few days subsequent to the merriment of Christ's delivery, you crammed your suitcase and headed off 300 miles west to Alvarado City, to patch the torn seams of your fractured past. It had been almost a month since you had awaken, but we all had to accept the fact that you had expected to wake up there, not here.

I had spent an additional evening with you prior, where we nestled in bed sheets to shield ourselves from the piercing squalls of festive December. It had almost been two months since I saw you first and almost a month since you woke up. I still clearly recollected the look of unfamiliarity in etched inside your eyes when you saw me again. I could remember the appearance of your face; every contour, lip crease, kaleidoscopic rivers that zigzagged in your coffee-coloured irises; every dark strand of hair that spilled down towards your chest, the way you held your body steady and serenely. I can remember seeing the serrated scar that ran from the left of your forehead to the side of your face. I can remember thinking how that was really the only flaw in your otherwise untouched skin. I was wondering what exactly must have caused a head injury in that manner.

I could see it in your soul that you were in reconciliation with yourself, and that was enough to lift the shadowy spirits above my head.

'I'm going back home for a while,' you whispered to me under the drone of the glowing TV monitor in my bedroom, as I lay on my side, feeling every rise and crevice of your anterior body cupping my back.

I understood that for you, home was always there now. You were excepting to rouse in the comfort of your Alvarado chamber with Amy whistling downstairs as she flipped eggs and bacon. You had expected to get a phone call from Sofia, visualising her twisting her claret mane and uttering her wholesome affection for you. You never thought you'd wake up in a stranger town known as Huntington Valley, where Amy didn't exist and Sofia was exchanged for a timid, grey eyed, flaxen haired girl called Grace.

I understood that you would now have to devote time to memorising the new surroundings that awaited you, and over a week in, as we took concealment beneath the sheets and we gabbed about futile things as if we had been together a lifetime, I could sense the stiffening of your body as I told you I loved you. You couldn't say it back. It was like a foreigner had taken your mind captive, taking your far out of your own element. You were trying so hard to remember.

So I let you drive you Alvarado City, to patch the seams of your splintered history because I knew you needed it. It hurt to watch you go, just as I had become used to your company again in spite of its tainted edge. I was alacritous to stay with you for every fleeting second of my time. I had almost lost all hope in ever seeing you again, and when I found out that things wouldn't turn out that way, I had to make sure that I was there with you and for you.

The day I watched your parents' car accelerate down the road after you kissed me goodbye, I comprehended that all of this just wouldn't be enough. That's when I decided to write this all down. I felt you needed this last year documented for you. You really needed to understand what happened between us; between the white lies you'd been fed ever since the accident. I needed to tell you the truth and let you into the gates of our past affection, and then maybe you would react better to the statements of my love. Maybe you would say goodbye to Amy, and the demons which had murdered you once before.

During the entire duration of your absence, I scrawled all of our memories down on many perished trees of paper. Every single minuscule detail isn't written to complete accuracy, but I wrote what I could remember and I tried my best. I have spent the last month writing every memory vigorously for me to hand to you one day.

I really hope it helps.

Whether I give you this book, I don't know. I might do it next September, nanoseconds before you walk into the departure terminal to head off to a college far away. I might never give it to you. I might just keep it for myself, to remind me of how far we've really come. Maybe when we're ancient and wrinkly, I'll finally show it to you. I might take it to the junkyard and dispose of it. Either way, we spend our lives on earth, collecting and throwing away memories, but where do they go when we die? Are they moved along into another living soul? Do memories reincarnate like the human spirit may? What happens to then?

I guess whatever I do to this book will not change anything, because things will stay as they were and nothing can change that. You could have remembered every minute second of certain events, or you could have been thrown into a coma and lost every recollection. That wouldn't stop anything. Memories can be around for us to keep or throw away. Like time, they never diminish.

So this is the end of the story of the main events that carved out our relationship for the last year. I've never been that good at ending things, and I'm not really sure what to say at this point, but I think it's time to close the chapters of this book. And you never know; maybe one day they'll be opened again.

It's been a pleasure writing to you.

_I love you with all of the love that I possess,_

_Love Olivia Grace Silverman._

**THIRTY-TWO.**

**After the diary.**

**'For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over again.'**

-Eric Roth, _The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay_

You and I sit serenely on the cliff face on Prom Night, with my platform shoes glimmering as they dangle off the rock. You hold a Beck's in your sweaty palms, lying back with your tuxedo buttons undone at the chest. My chiffon lace tulle gown flows gently around me, covering the Valley soil on the full moon of July. The summer's constellations seemed to have congregated in the obscurity of the broad universe, hanging above us. I lean my head on your shoulder, sitting in the quiet that surrounds us. I know I love you because we had times where the silence was enough to translate it.

You pop the can open and swig it before talking.

'I can't wait to go to college.'

'Me neither.' I respond in a peaceful whisper, keeping my eyes on the cosmos above us.

'It's a chance for me to start again, you know? Meet new people. Become a new person. I can't wait for that chance. I'm going to become a portrait photographer. You know, because I feel that memorising faces is a skill worth capturing.' You laughed at your joke, poking slightly at the reality of it. I couldn't help but smile along. Ever since things changed, you'd seen the best in everything. I loved that part of you.

'I really want to study psychology.' I said. I wanted to see if I could finally envelope myself around the contours of your once fractured mind and see what caused things to happen the way they did. I knew I would never find out truly but it was always worth a try. The more I knew, I guess.

You had been busy studying and writing out online exams to pay off for the time that had taken the memory right out of your grasp. You'd been doing extremely well these past eight months. The mind of yours that had always thrived with maturity, wisdom, happiness, and perseverance had returned. You were the person that I had met a year and a half ago and nothing else.

We had learnt to grow back since November. We were a tree brought down and through the odds, the stump accumulated wood, bark, branches, and leaves and blossomed flowers. It took a while but we made it.

Seven months prior, your brown eyes shone empty. Memories of our love were just a stranger.  
You had forgotten everything, just as you had aspired for so long. The assorted boxes of antidepressants were never enough to demolish your corrosive, hellish thoughts. It was the power of the braking of a car, causing you to plummet into oblivion, substituting the tears with blood and memories, broken like the glass of the window shield that was buried deep in your skin and coffee tinted locks.

It took me a long time to understand what truly hid beneath your exterior and locate the cracks and the delicacy of the shell you lived within. I had to save you from your own hell.

And I had got lost in your mind, tracing the map of your rugged soul, travelling through blood red mountains and crawling amongst your slashed thoughts.

I ran through the arteries that led to four broken chambers. I swung through your eyes that searched for liberation; that were clouded with the silky night. I landed on your lips that were softer than the words in your head; that stretched into the rarest of smiles. I held onto your hands that reached out to me, rasping onto my waist with hope, and clutching onto me with affection and desperation. I lay in your arms and fell into unconsciousness. I drifted into constellations and witnessed supernovas. I lived within your tainted, clouded soul. I shared your spirit with the Gods and hoped they'd take it with ease. I tried to make you better, I tried.

The first time after your endless rest; 29 days and 10.5 hours, you didn't know my name or even of my presence. You had forgotten the love that was etched and intertwined somewhere in your pain. You wanted to forget and your desire was established. Nonetheless, it taken so much from you.  
I had kissed you a million times, crooned you to slumber, wept beside your river; I strained to restore you.

Everything was better now. I didn't feel the pain that I once had, and neither did you. This time you accepted that Amy wasn't around. And by accepting that fact, you were cure from the disease of denial.

My mother eventually sold her ring off to a pawn shop in town and kept her wedding photos in the attic instead of in her bedroom, which I guess is a start. She is also seeing somebody which I'm totally excited about.

Eva moved towns to study at a university in another town, whilst her parents looked after her new son at home. Our goodbyes were filled with tears and longing. The amount of times we said 'I'll miss you so much,' could have been infinite if we never let go of each other at the airport. I plan on calling her every week, to see how her Law degree is going. I bet she'll have a blast, attending all of those sorority freshman parties every weekend and then waking up with hangovers to attend lectures on the High Court.

This was our last summer together before parting ways in September. For now though, the midnight view, the sparkling incandescence and the warmth of your body was all I needed.

**EPILOGUE.**

**'Your past is just a story. And once you realise this, it has no power over you.'**

- Chuck Palahniuk, _invisible Monster_

**Future.**

Five years ago, we moved on to study at different colleges, miles between us. We tried keeping up a long-distance relationship, sending each other endless emails documenting stories of our lives on freshman campus. We also had phone calls that sometimes lasted the entire duration of the night. We knew it would be rare to see each other often, so we did what we could to stay in touch. I promised you that at every semester break, I would come and see you again.

Psychology was an extremely subject to put all of my time and effort into – nonetheless, I loved every minute of learning it. It was something that genuinely fascinated me and would do for the rest of my life. Finding out how the mind works must have been one of the hardest challenges man has ever faced; delving deep into the brain, using the brain to do it.

I made new friends on my arrival to university. They were in fact three girls that I shared a sorority room with. Two of them were Arizona and Sally Matthews, a pair of cousins that originated from Dallas, Texas. I was quite confused as to why one of them was named after a state different to their own origin and was told that it was just the weird sense of irony her mother had. Their characters were both quite timid and subdued like mine. They both had a serious obsession with reading and they actually introduced me to the many novels I've come to know and love to this day.

Another was a girl named Genevieve Williams – an extremely wise and astute student that I shared a bunk bed with in my dorm room. She seemed to have a case of minor OCD, always requesting that the room looked spotless. She was born in an area of Los Angeles, California to parents that attained high quality jobs as medical doctors. I could tell that her intelligence must have been inherited in one form or the other.

With these girls, I would attend numerous sorority parties, both on and off campus. Each one reminded me of you because of the flamboyance and energy that flowed through every person, similar to how you did.

I was a year into college when I came to the conclusion that I would love you forever. 356 days had passed in your absence, replaced by the sound of your voice through the phone or the sight of your words on a computer screen, and yet I still yearned for you like I would have weeks after we first met.

Four years later, I graduated with a degree in Counselling Psychology and I was a step closer to achieving my ultimate dream of becoming a therapist for children and young adults. I wanted to be able to help others how I had subliminally helped you, but on a higher, more professional level. I wanted to be able to show kids that whatever trauma or event that had occurred in their life, causing them to deteriorate, that they should never lose hope, because hope is the only thing that will ever keep you moving through tough times. If you could even just imagine the light of the tunnel, you would be one step closer to recovery. This included being a psychiatrist for people suffering from things like severe depression to bipolar to anorexia nervosa. I wanted to be there for other humans, and leave the positive mark on them that I once thought I never would.

**'What she had realised was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.'**

-Stieg Larsson, _The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo_

We met after my graduation and it was a beautiful reunifying. After working so hard all those years and hardly ever getting so see you, I had reached my twenty-first birthday to find that we still shared mutual affection. You once asked me if you thought love ever died. Now, I know that in our case, it never will.

After meeting up in a café two weeks from my departure from college, you told me that you had dropped out of your seminary institution to try and chase your vision of becoming a successful freelance portrait photographer. Your mane had long lost its flowing length, now cut short. You had also grown a pleasing amount of facial hair. I had also managed to spot a tattoo on your bicep, which was the number 31 in a slightly slanted font.

'What does that mean?' I asked, signalling to it.

'This thing? Oh, I got it a couple of months back. It was just to symbolise how coincidental that some of the biggest events of my life happened on the 31st of each month. You know, Amy's passing and the car accident on Halloween. It's quite strange, isn't it?'

'Yeah… I never actually thought about that.'

'Well, back to the college subject, I want to show Amy proud. I know she was always rooting for me to do what I loved the most. I need to show her that I can, and I can't just sit around and write about photography. I actually need to go out into this world and _shoot _photography_._'

I smiled after you revealed to me your current ambitions. Somewhere in my mind, I knew that you would never finish college. You had the patience of a minor when it came to things like studying.

'I've already moved out into an apartment in the city where I studied. Mom and Dad lent me enough money to pay rent for about a full year, isn't that amazing?' you said.

'It really is, Jo.' I replied, clasping your hands in mine as they rested on the transparent glass of the table we drank coffee at.

'I'm applying for a part-time job at that huge five-star cuisine restaurant in the middle of town. I can deal with a few late nights in after serving a few people, right? Anyway, I'll use that money and save up to make a photography studio somewhere in the apartment; I have a spare bedroom.' You sipped on a Vanilla Spice Latte. You preferred the same flavour as your mother.

'It sounds like an amazing plan. I'm rooting for you, and so is Amy.'

'Thank you.' You smiled.

'Look Grace, I know we haven't seen each other in a really time and this might be too much for you… but I know that I'm going to have many lonely days and nights in that apartment. I don't really know how long I'll be trying to pursue this career and I want to be able to hitch this crazy rollercoaster ride with the one I love the most to keep me company and spur me on. Do you think you could move in with me?'

I cupped my mouth with my hands in pure amazement, before exclaiming 'Oh my God.' I bet some people in the café thought that you had proposed or something.

For some reason, it never occurred for me to me that we would ever live together. I was just used to the constant trips that we took around each other's houses, back in our teens. I never thought that instead, we could live together.

'Yes,' I said. 'It would be my complete honour to move in with you, Jonah.'

A couple of months and a million packed cardboard boxes later, I found myself settling into the apartment you lived in, right in the middle of the city. Our rooms were many floors high, meaning we had the pleasure of a beautiful vista from outside our living room window. The metropolitan lights that glimmered brought me back to the view of Huntington Valley I would see from the Edge.

I took a job working as a receptionist a pre-school – not exactly what I had initially opted for, but it would do for the meantime.

We spent Christmas that year back in Huntington. It was the first time that I hadn't seen it snow there circa festive season.

A traditional celebration took place, where your family hosted a huge banquet for us to feast in to. My mother and her new husband Phil attended and she was radiating with a happiness I had never quite seen in her before.

'I would like to make a toast,' you said at the dinner table. 'This will just be a little reminder to my family and myself, of how amazing my life is right now. At twenty-two years old, I could not be prouder of where I stand today. Yes, I still have a dream to catch and money to make, but I have a remarkable woman in my life that I cannot live without. Although she hasn't exactly replaced Amy, she has filled up the dark void that Amy's absence left many years ago. I am so lucky to have you with me, Grace.'

On Boxing Day, we took a ride down to the Edge. It was unusual to think that we hadn't visited that place in almost six years; everything remained just as we had left it. The trees that surrounded the small opening still stood defiantly, facing out towards the mountains. The Valley was still alive and well, below us.

'Do you want a cigarette?' you asked me, removing a Marlboro Lights packet from your pocket.

'Jo, you know I don't smoke,' I responded, shaking my head.

'Come on, just try one.' You pleaded with a mischievous glimmer in your eyes.

'No.'

'Please.

'No!'

'OK, at least hold the packet for me a second while I light the one in my hand.'

'You can put it on the floor.'

'Come on, Grace.'

'Fine,' I said, before quickly snatching it from your grasp. I was utterly surprised when I realised that the packet was near empty – and the sound of an object I heard in there didn't carry the same sound to it as a cigarette. As I shook the packet to find out what it could be, I realised that there was something heavier inside. All of the air I had ever breathed left my lungs once I had opened the lid, revealing a glistening silver sterling ring. 'No way,' was all I could repeat for about five minutes through fits of hyperventilation and floods of tears.

'So you'll marry me?' you asked.

'Obviously. Yes, I will marry you, Jonah Christopher.' I rose to my feet after placing the ring on my finger and watching as it slid perfectly into place. You stood up a few seconds after, and I osculated your tender lips and embraced you for a million years.

When we returned back to the reality of our small apartment as fiancés, the spare bedroom began its transition into the photography studio you had always wanted. We also started booking in clients to shoot at home, and I made the calls and bookings. It was almost like I ran two jobs. One of your many photography portfolios was extracted and photos were hung up at the town's art gallery an exhibition you were hosting. The photos you chose to blow up and frame onto the empty white walls of the venue were grainy portraits of Amy.

Most of these photos, I had not even seen myself. You had taken them around two weeks before she died after you both took a trip to the City Lake. She agreed to be a model for your media assignment and you went out to take pictures with the backdrop of the glimmering blue lake painted behind her. She stood tall and striking in a small white dress that flowed in the breeze. Her long hair was down and in some photos; she posed weaving a few dark strands between her fingers. She wore a headband of daisies around her hair. If Angels really did exist on earth, she had to be one of them.

You never got the chance to use them in your assignment because she passed away two days before it was due in. The photos stayed hidden in your basement before you decided to take them with you to the apartment and add them to your collection.

The exhibition went amazingly well, and you swooped up a decent photography contract with a well-known world modelling agency. If you kept at it, you would be shooting for famous models within the next year. I couldn't have been more proud of how far you and I had come.

Three weeks ago, I took a trip back home to visit my mother and old friends, including Eva.

It had been almost two years since I had seen her in person, and it was such a great feeling to see her again.

We met in the central park of the town, colliding into each other's arms the second we caught one another's figures in the distance. She hasn't changed at all, really. Personality-wise, she's still the spunky, hilarious best friend I had all those years ago.

I looked down at the small boy holding wrapping his arms around her leg coyly. The last time I saw little Riley was back when he was born.

'Riley, come on. Say hi.'

He smiled reticently, burying his face into Eva's side. She picked him up once we began making our way through the park. We went to sit by the pond of ducks, and Eva took out a couple of slices of bread so Riley could feed them.

'Are you sure he won't fall in?' I asked, sat on the bench beside you. I watched as he eagerly meandered towards the banks.

'He's a hydrophobic. He can only get so close to water. I tried to take him swimming the other week; he wouldn't even step in. He also hates water in his eyes. Yes, he's _that _kid.' She laughed.

'He's so beautiful.'

'It's weird. He looks nothing like me.'

'He's got your attitude, and that's enough.'

She smiled softly. 'I wish Dylan was around to see him. I know he was really excited at the time. But I ruined it all, didn't I?'

'Eva, stop. Don't go back. Move forward.'

'It's funny how almost four years later, I still feel guilty.'

'So do I. But the feeling comes and goes. Some nights I wonder what it would be like if everything turned out differently. Other nights I respond, telling myself that there is no point pondering impossible possibilities. We can't live more than one reality, and it's something we need to deal with. This is how it's supposed to be. However cruel or wrong it seems. But inside it all, there are still golden moments. This should be enough to prove to you that the future isn't set in stone and the past isn't perfection.'

'I know, I know. I guess that's just life.'

'Yup.' We both watched Riley frolicking near the ducks before I changed the subject. 'Do you think Riley will win prom king when he's older?'

'I'll just pay the principle if he doesn't get enough votes. But I mean, look at him. He's already a lady-killer. Apparently he's been breaking hearts at preschool.'

'I can just tell. He probably plays hard to get, right? Keeps the toys to himself.'

'Something like that.' she grinned. 'So, how is the bride-to-be doing?'

'I'm good, I'm good. I don't think we're in a rush to get married any time soon, though.'

'How come?'

'Well, it's a huge deal. Also a lot of work and effort and commitment, and we're both trying to do our own things at the moment. I haven't even thought of a place yet, oh my god.'

'I'm the maid of honour, aren't I?'

'I don't know who else would be.'

'Neither do I. I'm so happy for you though, Grace.'

'I'm happy for you too. I'm happy for all of us.'

Right now I'm extremely sad because you're travelling to New York for a couple of months for a project you're involved in. On the bright side, by the end of it you will come back with a fortune in your pocket that will be enough for us to save up for our wedding plans. I'm going to stay with me in the meantime, helping out with the house. She's promised to cook dinner every day and I have to say, cannot wait to taste her home-made wonders again.

A random thought has occurred to me; I still have the book that I wrote to you four years ago. I never actually showed it to you; why I didn't I'll never know. I just couldn't bear to reveal to you the darkness that you once lived in, especially as you seemed so peaceful and happy at the time.

I feel as if life has moved too far on to delve in to the past. I do not think I will ever need to give the book to you anymore. You had worked so hard to rebuild the life you had now, and I wasn't about to knock it all down by reminding you of the rough patch you once endured. Sometimes I forgot that it was only me who remembered that year so clearly. Even though the first ten months was shared with you, it was only me that held on to it.

I honestly think it is time to let go.

I think I will read it once more before I get rid of it. I just need to have the memories clear in my mind again, as I can feel them slipping away over time. I don't know why I want to put myself through this, but I believe it will be worth it. I will be able to move on, just as you did.

I climb into the attic to withdraw a thick, tattered notebook that's disintegrated with age. I had printed out every single page of the diary whilst I was in college, sticking them together with a binder. It looked more like a thesis than a diary, but I put it in a notebook-styled cover and decided to hide it somewhere where I couldn't bump into it during daily life.

Midday, I sit on my living room floor and read through every page, being transported back to all those years ago. I don't know how long I cry for afterwards. The tears feel infinite. When you come home early and ask me what's wrong, I reply nothing. You continue to probe for a while before leaving me when you realise that I will not budge. My sole excuse is just how overwhelmed I am that you are leaving me again, which is partly true.

'You know I'll be back soon, Grace.'

'I know. I'm just a little sad about it, that's all.'

Tomorrow morning, I plan on taking a trip to the corner shop to top up on our supply of milk and bread. On the way there, I will drive down to Huntington National Park and take a small walk to the Edge. I will take the notebook and rip out each delicate, aged page and watch them fly into the air and disappear in the lukewarm breeze.

Tomorrow I will find the place in your mind that erased our memories and prompt my mind to do the same. I know it will never be really possible – especially after reminding myself of everything today. But I will let go eventually. One day, when we're old and wrinkled and ancient, I might just forget.

All of this 'forgetting' that I've wanted to do so badly may just be for absolutely nothing. We need these memories to show we lived, right?

I hope that whoever is reading this understands the theme of this story.

You can either hold on or let go to your past, but either way it still existed. It a closed chapter of your life that you'll never have to return to. So don't ever be too adamant to burn the pages that you once wrote.

Every memory, good or bad, adds up into the person that you are today.

Always remember that.

**"Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone."**

― Haruki Murakami, _Kafka on the Shore_


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